Strangers I Know by Claudia Durastanti, Text

Part novel, part memoir, this comingof-age story plunges us into the complex childhood of the author and her brother, born to deaf parents. Her father preferred people to “enunciate clearly”, slapping away their hands if they tried to use sign language, which in the family home was never used. Her mother became deaf following childhood meningitis and her parents sent her to a boarding school where the nuns recognised her artistic talent. “Deaf girls are funny – they’re wild,” her mother once declared. The author’s dedication is “to a girl and a boy [her parents] who lived through their deafness with recklessness. While I was trying to be brave or good, they were teaching me how to be free.”