AustLit

'‘You don’t know the first thing about me,’ a mother tells her son, a writer, in the powerful opening chapter of Peter Polites’ God Forgets About the Poor. ‘A son can never see his mother as a woman. You will only see me in relation to you. I have lived a thousand lives before you were even a thought.’ The woman, who we will find out is called Honoured, dismisses the ‘gay things’ her son has written before. Honoured dares him to write her story instead, of migrating from a village in Greece to the suburbs of Western Sydney. People will love it, she tells him. As a former librarian checking out Captain Corelli’s Mandolin for patrons, she knows Australians love to read about war, romance, and migrants’ suffering.' (Introduction)