Shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize
Sanya Rushdi – Hospital
Fiction · Giramondo Publishing
About the Book
In Melbourne a one-time research student with interests in philosophy and psychology is diagnosed with her third episode of psychosis. As she is moved from her family home to a community house and then to hospital, she questions the diagnosis of her sanity or insanity, as determined and defined by a medical model which seems less than convincing to her. Indeed questioning seems to be at the heart of her psychosis, in her over-active interpretations of signs and gestures, thoughts and emotions – and one understands these to be an expression of her intelligence, even if they seem illusory. She tells her story in a calm, rational voice, with an acute sense of detail and an objective air, as she wonders when the next psychotic episode will materialise, or if it hasn’t arrived already.
Based on real-life events, translated from Bengali by the award-winning Indian translator Arunava Sinha, Hospital is an extraordinary novel that portrays the experience of psychosis and its treatments in an unflinching and understated way, while struggling more broadly with the definition of sanity in our society.
“Hospital is an unflinching, insightful and delicately wrought work of autofiction that brings devastating lucidity to the often-opaque realm of mental health.”
– 2024 Stella Prize Judges
About the Author
Sanya Rushdi
Sanya Rushdi was born in Bangladesh and studied the biological sciences and psychology at Monash University, the University of Sydney and Deakin University. Hospital is her first novel. She currently lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Further Reading
Reviews
“Hospital may be a slim novel, but the ideas explored within it are expansive—Rushdi successfully plays with, and in the process, ruptures societal definitions of what constitutes a mental illness.” Sonia Nair, Meanjin
“Rushdi’s novel is a provocation. Hospital is proof that language, and indeed writing, is an escape from our mental prisons.” Cher Tan, ABC Arts
“Hospital is exceptionally moving. It is a novel which lingers; it sticks to the skin.” Ellie Fisher, Westerly
Links
Judges’ Report
A deeply experiential book.
Hospital is an unflinching, insightful and delicately wrought work of autofiction that brings devastating lucidity to the often-opaque realm of mental health. Drawn from Rushdi’s own experience with psychosis, it is a novel that bucks the classic tropes and cliches, eschewing sensationalism and sentimentality in favour of an invitation to meaningful engagement and understanding. Through her spare, honest words, deftly translated from the Bengali by Arunava Singha, Rushdi’s ordeal becomes our own. We descend into psychosis with the narrator, acutely feel her disconnections and institutional indignities. We come to question notions of “illness” and “treatment”. There are no jump scares, just the ineluctable clarity that demands we remain in the moment with something we find deeply uncomfortable.
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