From Mumbai’s ‘illegal migrant workers’ to Melbourne crypto traders, The Degenerates is global Australian literature

By Michelle Cahill, Adjunct, Department of English, School of Humanities, University of Tasmania

In Raeden Richardson’s debut novel, The Degenerates, displacement and travel feature within the lives of aspiring outcasts in the wildly disparate cities of Bombay (Mumbai’s colonial precursor), in Melbourne’s inner-city lanes and southwest suburbs, and in downtown New York.

This is not strictly a novel about identity, nor assimilation. Not all its characters are Indians of the diaspora, but they all seek refuge from forms of oppression, be it caste-based, social or family violence.

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