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For ten years she was chair of the Becher Foundation, which supported indigenous programs, refugees and asylum seekers, women in the developing world, Jewish community projects, and rural and regional communities.
A few years ago she suffered a stroke, which impaired her ability to speak, write and spell. She has fought the disability, determined to keep writing. Rupture is her first book since then.
Susan is a keen collector of Aboriginal art, loves 1930s china and, of course, reading. She and her partner Anne spent much of the year in the NSW Southern Highlands and some months in sunny Brunswick Heads. She has recently brought out a new book, which will mix both poetry and prose. In December 2021 her beloved partner Anne died after contracting an incurable sarcoma.
©Susan Varga 2023
contact: info@susanvargawriter.com
Headlong
University of WA Publishing, 2009
Short-listed for the Barbara Jefferis Award
Julia has suddenly lost her husband and, along with him, her will to live. The vital, energetic old woman that her daughter Kati thought she knew has disappeared almost overnight. How is Kati to cope with a mother constantly on the verge of suicide? The finely wrought tale of love and conflice casts a searchlight into dark areas – how people deal with ageing, loss, death and grief. At what point are you allowed to say ‘Life is not worth living’?
With a rare simplicity Susan Varga describes the gradual merging of the inner landscape of grief with the life-giving of the wider world. An unforgettable work, anchored firmly in our times.
Robert Dessaix
‘A lot of people run away to Broome. It is the perfect place to run to. So far away, so remote, so of itself and nowhere else. Many come here because they don’t fit anywhere else. This place is very tolerant of strangeness. But you can change your life here. That is Broome’s promise.’
Reviews
‘Anton Chekov once gave advice along these lines: “If you want to shock, tell it cold.” One can imagine the scalpel wielded behind this succinct phrase. Such an image comes frequently to mind when reading Susan Varga’s Headlong. The story of a woman’s suicide is told from her daughter’s point of view in uncompromising, minimalist prose that, underneath its surface, conveys a lifetime of emotion. . . the novel takes on the compulsive pace of a thriller, as the characters are faced with a seemingly insoluble dilemma.’
Dorothy Johnston, Sydney Morning Herald
‘There is a complexity and compassion in Susan Varga’s account of a mother seeking to die, a family who diagnoses her as simply depressed and grieving for her husband, and their various attempts to resolve this dilemma. She provides a thought-provoking portrait of a mother-daughter relationship fraught with guilt, pain and the mother’s request for assistance to commit suicide.’
Judges’ report, Barbara Jefferis Award 2010
‘Headlong is an intense, tough and finely nuanced examination of a daughter’s role when a beloved aged mother wants, above all else, to die.’
Joan London, Sydney Morning Herald
‘Headlong is essentially a finely judged study of grief, and its aftermath, of sinking to the depths and rising again into new life. It also considers the question of inner strength, and its creation.’
Lucy Sussex, Sunday Age
‘It is a moving, concise, clear-eyed account of the demands of love and the painful progress of grief.’
Katherine England, Adelaide Advertiser
‘Headlong is a novel written simply and elegantly. Tenderly, painstakingly, Varga builds a landscape of heart-wrenching choices . . .’
Alan Gold, Jewish News
Headlong is available from most good book stores or