All This Here, Now Av Anna Stern

<p>Ananke’s death rips a huge hole in the lives of their friends. A member of the group reflects on their shared mourning, remembering times past: childhood holidays and idyllic summers, as well as tensions and arguments. Ananke is a constant, enigmatic presence, yet remains mysterious and out of reach. When the numbness of trauma becomes too much to bear, the group impulsively takes a road trip to dig up Ananke’s ashes and bring them back to the sea by the hut where Ananke used to live.</p><p>Stern’s contemplative, ethereal yet vivid prose brings heightened sensibility to the present moment and the obliquity of memory. Flouting gender pronouns and written entirely in minuscule, all this here, now is a vision of a more collectively grounded fiction where ‘we’ is stronger than ‘I’. The effect is as meditative as it is compulsively engaging, delivered in Damion Searls’ distinctive translation.</p>