Harlots by Emma Wright

Set in an underground refuge, Harlots imagines the women of Shakespeare’s plays who were forced into a terrible bargain: “die to live”. These are the circumstances Shakespeare gave them. The rest is the story he never wrote.

Only when it’s deemed safe will they return to the land of the living, into the hands of their reformed husbands. Hermione has waited sixteen years. Hero hopes her stay won’t be quite as long. Helena has different plans altogether.

Part critique and part love letter to the Bard, Harlots interrogates one of literature’s most enduring legacies, asking what happens when we shift our gaze away from kings, princes and tragic heroes, and towards the women whose stories have so often existed only in relation to them. Four hundred years after Shakespeare put pen to paper, it asks why these cycles of violence remain so painfully familiar.

Why tell this story now?

Every generation inherits the stories that came before it. By returning to canonical works with fresh eyes, we can examine not only the past that shaped them, but the present they continue to shape. We can ask what has changed, what has endured, and what still demands to be challenged.

At a time when violence against women remains a global crisis, and specialist family violence services across Australia face increasing funding uncertainty, Harlots could not be more urgent. 

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