Bite your tongue

BACKGROUND 'Bite Your Tongue', published by award winning feminist publisher Spinifex Press is set in 1970s Queensland. This novel-cum-memoir contributes to Australia's literary culture by offering through its structural and figurative modes a site -specific piece focused on a significant historical period. Similar to critically acclaimed Janette Turner Hospital's work, this fictionalised mother-daughter memoir is preoccupied with "secrets that refuse to remain buried".CONTRIBUTION The focus of this work is on silence, shame and finding voice, and how the body operates and survives as the language of this process. Complex and self-reflexive, it is a book about books and the body, language and writing the self. The work's literary contribution has been recognised widely: "idiosyncratic and original" (Gail Jones, author); "a remarkable feat: [it]...moves pretty-well-effortlessly between the directly auto-biographical and the lyricism of good fiction" (Clare Strahan, Overland); "[it] lends its voice to a tradition of Queensland women's writing in a growing cacophony of many tongues" (Jessica Gildersleeve, Queensland Review); a "must read": "Part fable, part fact, it illustrates Rendle-Short's literary prowess." "Here is no Babel. Here is a fantastical tongue-atorium." (Dominique Hecq, Text Journal review).SIGNIFICANCE The work's value is attested to by: invitations to speak at literary conferences and events including Prairie Lights Iowa City (USA), Reaching the World Bangkok, Reality Bites Festival, Lighthouse Lit Festival; the Australian Book Review referred to it as one of the "best books for 2011"; reviewed extensively both nationally and internationally in highly esteemed publications and media outlets such as Queensland Review (Cambridge), Cultural Studies Review, Life Matters and Books and Arts Daily (ABC Radio National), The Weekend Australian, The Lit Show (Iowa), The Age, and The Courier Mail. Shortlisted for the national 2012 Colin Roderick Literary Award.