Introduction -- Marguerite Duras : the leper of the heart -- La Penserosa : Eva Figes and the Fall -- The eater vanishes : surrealism and survival in Janet Frame -- Helen Garner : honour and the Recording Angel -- Voices let loose : Nadine Gordimer's people -- Babies eat their lace : Elizabeth Jolley and the slaughter of decorum -- It isn't my face : Jean Rhys, identity and abandonment -- Speaking for yourself : Susan Sontag and the melancholy aesthetic -- On a dark stage struck : the prose poetry of Ania Walwicz -- Conclusions