AustLit

'At the water’s edge, the ship’s flank is seared open. Wielding acetylene torches, the labourers carve up a ship’s carcass. Rivets pop as the steel melts and yields to the focused flame that tears at its seams. In this graveyard at the water’s edge of Colombo harbour, the ebb and flow of tides bear witness to these processes of systematic dismemberment. This is the scene that opens Suvendrini Perera’s uncompromising analysis of the practices of violence that inscribe the end-journeys of refugees desperately seeking sanctuary as they flee the various hells that make life in their countries of origin unlivable. This scene graphically captures the elemental polarities that bookend Perera’s profoundly moving essay on refugees, diasporic dispersals, urgent flights and failed arrivals: fire and water, life and death. ' (Author's introduction)