Shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Age Book of the Year Award and Nita B. Kibble Award; listed for the Australia-Asia Literary Award and highly commended for the Barbara Jefferis Award 2008.
In her late twenties, Martine Hartmann moves from Sydney to New York to advance her photography career, leaving behind her mother Lotte, a holocaust survivor. Nine years later, Martine’s daughter Ruby goes missing in Central Park. Ruby’s disappearance throws Martine into an emotional struggle that leads her to understand Lotte’s anxieties and inhibitions, and to discover the act of abandonment at their heart.
Burning In is a beautifully written psychological novel, an extended meditation on grief and loss, which explores the long shadows cast by the past on the present, and the relationship between parental love and the imperatives of survival. Juchau has an extraordinary eye for detail, and an unerring feel for the rhythm of thought and feeling.
Juchau has a perfectly honed cadence that borders on the poetic and her ability to communicate complex emotions is faultless…
—Johanna Leggatt, Sun Herald
…one of the finest and most original novels of the past few years…
—Peter Pierce, Meanjin
The novel ranges fluently across continents and generations. Its title metaphor—of photographic prints given extra exposure to darken some areas—indicates the sombre tone of an accomplished novel, yet one that reaches for the recovery of joy.
—Prime Minister’s Literary Awards
The French edition of Burning In, titled Le révélateur, was translated by Josette Chicheportiche and published in 2012.
The Croatian edition of Burning In, titled Potamnjivanje (Darken), was translated by Marija Paprašarovski and published in 2013.