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'These are troubling times. The world is a dangerous place,' the voice of the Chairman said. 'I can continue to assure you of this: within the Wall you are perfectly safe.'
'Christine could not sleep, she could not wake, she could not think. She stared, half-blind, at the cold screen of her smartphone. She was told the Agency was keeping them safe from the dangers outside, an outside world she would never see.
'She never imagined questioning what she was told, what she was allowed to know, what she was permitted to think. She never even thought there were questions to ask.
'The enclave was the only world she knew, the world outside was not safe. Staying or leaving was not a choice she had the power to make. But then Christine dared start thinking . . . and from that moment, danger was everywhere.
'In our turbulent times, Claire G. Coleman's Enclave is a powerful dystopian allegory that confronts the ugly realities of racism, homophobia, surveillance, greed and privilege and the self-destructive distortions that occur when we ignore our shared humanity.' (Publication summary)
Notes
-
Author's note: For Lily always
For Robert, I owe you so much
and
For all our trans & queer sibs, you matter.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Dyslexic edition.
Works about this Work
-
Claire Coleman Gives a Voice to the Urban Indigenous Experience
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 12 July no. 805 2023; (p. 31) 'It's a sign of the times when even an award-winning Noongar author can find herself living on the streets, unable to find a rental.'(Introduction)
-
Running to Nowhere
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2022;
— Review of Enclave 2022 single work novel -
Locus Looks at Books : Alexandra Pierce
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Locus , September vol. 89 no. 3 2022; (p. 18)
— Review of Enclave 2022 single work novel 'Claire G. Coleman's third novel Enclave seems, at first, deceptively simple. Coleman is an Indigenous Australian; Enclave follows Terra Nullius (published by Hachette in Australia, and Small Beer in the US) and The Old Lie (also Hachette). In this novel, the language is direct and seems to be telling the perhaps ordinary story of a girl gaming up in a deliberately isolated city. which is keeping itself separate because of disasters happening elsewhere in the world. AU very straight-forward, and a few chapters in, if this were your first Coleman novel, you might wonder if there's a "but" coming; if you've read her others. you'll be on tenterhooks, just waiting. There is a "but," of course; there's sentences like this: "Heat from the roadway blasted up to meet the head raining down from the open sky; these competing heats did not feud, they united. formed a gang, went looking for trouble." Eventually, life for Christine. the protagonist, takes a dramatic twist and exposes everything that she's been taught, and the reader has so far learned, as a lie.' (Introduction)
-
Books Roundup
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , July 2022;
— Review of Big Beautiful Female Theory 2020 single work autobiography ; Enclave 2022 single work novel ; Holy Woman : A Divine Adventure 2022 single work autobiography ; Forty Nights 2022 single work novel -
Enclave by Claire G Coleman Review – Why Shouldn’t We Make a Utopia?
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 22 July 2022;
— Review of Enclave 2022 single work novel 'This action-packed parable uses a dystopian vision to pose another question: why not imagine a future where we get it right – or at least, less wrong?'
-
Claire G. Coleman Enclave
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 2-8 July 2022;
— Review of Enclave 2022 single work novel'John Clare was the great poet of “enclosure”. Unlike other major Romantic writers, he was of the peasantry – he lived through a period during which lands once held for the benefit of all were privatised in the name of “improving” agricultural productivity. Such commons were fenced off and patrolled against encroachment:
'There once were lanes in nature’s freedom dropt,
There once were paths that every valley wound –
Inclosure came, and every path was stopt;
Each tyrant fix’d his sign where paths were found,
To hint a trespass now who cross’d the ground…' (Introduction)
-
A Dystopian or Utopian Future? Claire G. Coleman’s New Novel Enclave Imagines Both
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 12 July 2022;
— Review of Enclave 2022 single work novel'I was reading Noongar author Claire G. Coleman’s third novel, Enclave, a few days after the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade judgement, a political victory for a conservative project many years in the making.' (Introduction)
-
Enclave by Claire G Coleman Review – Why Shouldn’t We Make a Utopia?
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 22 July 2022;
— Review of Enclave 2022 single work novel 'This action-packed parable uses a dystopian vision to pose another question: why not imagine a future where we get it right – or at least, less wrong?' -
Books Roundup
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , July 2022;
— Review of Big Beautiful Female Theory 2020 single work autobiography ; Enclave 2022 single work novel ; Holy Woman : A Divine Adventure 2022 single work autobiography ; Forty Nights 2022 single work novel -
Locus Looks at Books : Alexandra Pierce
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Locus , September vol. 89 no. 3 2022; (p. 18)
— Review of Enclave 2022 single work novel 'Claire G. Coleman's third novel Enclave seems, at first, deceptively simple. Coleman is an Indigenous Australian; Enclave follows Terra Nullius (published by Hachette in Australia, and Small Beer in the US) and The Old Lie (also Hachette). In this novel, the language is direct and seems to be telling the perhaps ordinary story of a girl gaming up in a deliberately isolated city. which is keeping itself separate because of disasters happening elsewhere in the world. AU very straight-forward, and a few chapters in, if this were your first Coleman novel, you might wonder if there's a "but" coming; if you've read her others. you'll be on tenterhooks, just waiting. There is a "but," of course; there's sentences like this: "Heat from the roadway blasted up to meet the head raining down from the open sky; these competing heats did not feud, they united. formed a gang, went looking for trouble." Eventually, life for Christine. the protagonist, takes a dramatic twist and exposes everything that she's been taught, and the reader has so far learned, as a lie.' (Introduction)
-
Claire Coleman Gives a Voice to the Urban Indigenous Experience
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 12 July no. 805 2023; (p. 31) 'It's a sign of the times when even an award-winning Noongar author can find herself living on the streets, unable to find a rental.'(Introduction)
Awards
- 2023 longlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
