AustLit

'Cokcraco: A novel in ten cockroaches by Paul Williams is a clever and playful novel that resurrects Kafka's motif of the cockroach. Whereas Kafka uses the cockroach to evoke notions of isolation and disconnection, Williams' cockroaches challenge socially constructed ideological perspectives. Having worked with this soft-spoken author at the University of the Sunshine Coast, I was pleasantly surprised by Williams' evocation of such a satirical voice that is at once scathing and spirited. The voice of the cockroach, evoked through the fictional author Sizwe Bantu, repositions the notion of 'pest' onto the destructive human: 'COCKROACH: Once they [humans] colonise a territory, it can be a real challenge to eliminate them... Their love of turning pristine wildernesses into sterile concrete nests and burrows is well documented' (pg. 21). The cockroach is used to expose the gap between seemingly antithetical standpoints; creator and critic, colonised and coloniser, perception and reality. The innovation of this work resides not only in the multiplicity of the voices presented, but also the structure of the novel.' (Introduction)