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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'A novel about the relationship between life and art, and between language and the inner world - how difficult it is to speak truly, to know and be known by another, and how much power and friction lies in the unsaid, especially between a mother and daughter.
'A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafes and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother's family in Hong Kong, and the daughter's own formative experiences. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken?
'Cold Enough for Snow is a reckoning and an elegy: with extraordinary skill, Au creates an enveloping atmosphere that expresses both the tenderness between mother and daughter, and the distance between them.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
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Author's note: For Oliver
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Selected as one of the Guardian Australia best Australian books of 2022
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Jessica Au Wins $80,000 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Novel, Cold Enough for Snow
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , November 2023; -
Jessica Au
Leah Jing McIntosh
(interviewer),
2023
single work
interview
— Appears in: Liminal , October 2023;'Jessica speaks to Leah Jing McIntosh about digressions, internal weather, and ekphrastic thinking.' (Introduction)
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Miles Franklin 2023 : A Guide to the Shortlist of Australia’s Biggest Literary Prize
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 25 July 2023; -
Queer Disobedience, Cultural Erasure and Uncomfortable Truths : Your Guide to the 2023 Miles Franklin Shortlist
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 24 July 2023;
— Review of Iris 2022 single work novel ; Cold Enough for Snow 2022 single work novel ; Limberlost 2022 single work novel ; Hopeless Kingdom 2022 single work novel ; The Lovers 2022 single work novel ; Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens 2022 single work novel -
Miles Franklin Award 2023: Shortlist Revealed for Australia’s Prestigious Literary Prize
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 20 June 2023;
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Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au Review – A Graceful Novella about How We Pay Attention
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 4 February 2022;
— Review of Cold Enough for Snow 2022 single work novel'Easy conclusions elude in this slender story about a mother and daughter’s trip to Japan'
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Jessica Au Cold Enough for Snow
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 12-18 February 2022;
— Review of Cold Enough for Snow 2022 single work novel'The narrator of Cold Enough for Snow is visiting Japan with her mother. “We did not live in the same city anymore, and had never really been away together as adults,” she writes, “but I was beginning to feel that it was important, for reasons I could not yet name.” Together, they explore museums and galleries, restaurants and bookshops, a cemetery, a bathhouse and a church, each place carefully chosen by the daughter “for what [her mother] might like to see”.' (Introduction)
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[Review] Cold Enough for Snow
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , February 2022;
— Review of Cold Enough for Snow 2022 single work novel -
The Responsibilities of Being : Jessica Au’s Precise, Poetic Meditation on Mothers and Daughters
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 3 March 2022;
— Review of Cold Enough for Snow 2022 single work novel'Jessica Au has been appearing on the Australian literary scene for quite some time now. I first noticed her work in the noughties: short fictions published in Overland and Wet Ink, stories with well-crafted sentences and engaging characters and an aesthetic that leaned toward stillness and dissociation.' (Introduction)
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“Cold Enough For Snow” by Jessica Au
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Asian Review of Books 2022;
— Review of Cold Enough for Snow 2022 single work novel'Jessica Au’s novella Cold Enough For Snow won the inaugural “Novel Prize” in 2020 while still in manuscript; it’s easy to understand what the judges saw in it. Compact and terse yet flowing, both concrete and ambiguous, intimate but distant, modest yet knowing, the book manages to find universality in the careful observation of detail.' (Introduction)
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Melbourne Author Jessica Au Wins $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature with Cold Enough for Snow
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , February 2023;'Melbourne writer Jessica Au has won Australia's richest literary award, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, at the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards (VPLAs) for her short but "masterful" novel Cold Enough for Snow.' (Introduction)
-
Miles Franklin Award 2023: Shortlist Revealed for Australia’s Prestigious Literary Prize
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 20 June 2023; -
Miles Franklin 2023 : A Guide to the Shortlist of Australia’s Biggest Literary Prize
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 25 July 2023; -
Jessica Au
Leah Jing McIntosh
(interviewer),
2023
single work
interview
— Appears in: Liminal , October 2023;'Jessica speaks to Leah Jing McIntosh about digressions, internal weather, and ekphrastic thinking.' (Introduction)
-
Jessica Au Wins $80,000 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Novel, Cold Enough for Snow
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , November 2023;
Awards
- 2023 winner Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Fiction
- 2023 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
- 2023 longlisted ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
- 2023 shortlisted Booksellers Choice Award BookPeople Book of the Year — Adult Fiction Book of the Year
- 2023 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year
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cJapan,cEast Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,