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Start giftingAbomination
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Learn more'He who turns his ear away from hearing the Torah - even his prayer is an abomination.' Proverbs 28:9
Melbourne 1999: Ezra and Yonatan are best friends whose lives are forever changed when their school, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Yahel Academy, is rocked by a scandal and they are thrown onto two divergent paths. Twenty years later, the lives of the two men are very different: Ezra identifies as secular and atheist, while Yonatan has been ordained as a rabbi and even teaches at the academy. By chance they are reunited, and the events of their past and present collide with devastating consequences.
Abomination lays bare the clash between religious and secular worlds in contemporary Australia and provides a revealing glimpse into a closed community. With great tenderness and insight debut author Ashley Goldberg tells the story of an enduring and evolving friendship as Yonatan and Ezra struggle to come to terms with the choices they have made, search for meaning, and forge their own identities. This is a beautifully observed, moving story from an exciting young writer.
Ashley Goldberg (Author)
Ashley Goldberg is an Australian writer based in Melbourne. His fiction has appeared in New Australian Fiction 2021, Meanjin, Chiron Review, The Honest Ulsterman and Award Winning Australian Writing among other publications. Ashley has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and a Graduate Diploma of Professional Writing from Canberra University. His work has been shortlisted, longlisted, and anthologized in numerous competitions worldwide, including the 2017/18 Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. In 2019, Ashley was a fellow at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre and a finalist for the Tasmanian Writers' Prize. Abomination was shortlisted for the 2020 Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award.
Matthew Backer (Reader)
Matthew graduated from NIDA in 2010. He made his professional debut playing the lead role of Frankie Valli in the Australian production of the internationally acclaimed musical Jersey Boys in 2011. He has worked with some of Australia's leading theatre companies including Sydney Theatre Company (Machinal, Orlando, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Chimerica, Cloud Nine), Bell Shakespeare (Henry V, The Tempest), Belvoir (Kill the Messenger), Griffin Theatre (Ladies Day), Queensland Theatre (Brisbane, Switzerland, Nearer the Gods) and Hayes Theatre (Only Heaven Knows, Young Frankenstein).
He is a current presenter on ABC's Play School and Play School Art Time and is also the host of ABC Kids Listen's successful improvised audio program, Story Salad.
His TV credits include Parent Up, Five Bedrooms, Operation Buffalo, Harrow, Dead Lucky, Home & Away, and History Hunters. His film credits include Marley, Someone and Only for a Time.
His short film credits include Whispers Among Wolves (Flickerfest, Sydney Film Festival, Palms Springs Film Festival, Hollywood Film Festival), Chicom, Echo Pines, The House, and Latte e Miele.
His audio book credits include Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman and Infinite Splendours by Sofie Laguna. Matthew has studied improvisation at the Upright Citizen's Brigade and the People's Improv Theatre in New York and at Second City in Los Angeles.
He was the winner of a 2016 Broadway World Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Sydney Theatre Company's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a 2016 Matilda Award for Best Actor in a Play for Queensland Theatre's Switzerland and 2017 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical for Hayes Theatre Co's Only Heaven Knows.
Ashley Goldberg (Author)
Ashley Goldberg is an Australian writer based in Melbourne. His fiction has appeared in New Australian Fiction 2021, Meanjin, Chiron Review, The Honest Ulsterman and Award Winning Australian Writing among other publications. Ashley has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and a Graduate Diploma of Professional Writing from Canberra University. His work has been shortlisted, longlisted, and anthologized in numerous competitions worldwide, including the 2017/18 Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. In 2019, Ashley was a fellow at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre and a finalist for the Tasmanian Writers' Prize. Abomination was shortlisted for the 2020 Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award.
Matthew Backer (Reader)
Matthew graduated from NIDA in 2010. He made his professional debut playing the lead role of Frankie Valli in the Australian production of the internationally acclaimed musical Jersey Boys in 2011. He has worked with some of Australia's leading theatre companies including Sydney Theatre Company (Machinal, Orlando, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Chimerica, Cloud Nine), Bell Shakespeare (Henry V, The Tempest), Belvoir (Kill the Messenger), Griffin Theatre (Ladies Day), Queensland Theatre (Brisbane, Switzerland, Nearer the Gods) and Hayes Theatre (Only Heaven Knows, Young Frankenstein).
He is a current presenter on ABC's Play School and Play School Art Time and is also the host of ABC Kids Listen's successful improvised audio program, Story Salad.
His TV credits include Parent Up, Five Bedrooms, Operation Buffalo, Harrow, Dead Lucky, Home & Away, and History Hunters. His film credits include Marley, Someone and Only for a Time.
His short film credits include Whispers Among Wolves (Flickerfest, Sydney Film Festival, Palms Springs Film Festival, Hollywood Film Festival), Chicom, Echo Pines, The House, and Latte e Miele.
His audio book credits include Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman and Infinite Splendours by Sofie Laguna. Matthew has studied improvisation at the Upright Citizen's Brigade and the People's Improv Theatre in New York and at Second City in Los Angeles.
He was the winner of a 2016 Broadway World Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Sydney Theatre Company's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a 2016 Matilda Award for Best Actor in a Play for Queensland Theatre's Switzerland and 2017 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical for Hayes Theatre Co's Only Heaven Knows.