{"id":2484,"date":"2025-04-01T05:35:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T05:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-alumn-nus.pantheonsite.io\/alumnus\/?p=2484"},"modified":"2025-07-15T16:07:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T08:07:38","slug":"capturing-the-weight-of-the-unspoken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/2025\/04\/01\/capturing-the-weight-of-the-unspoken\/","title":{"rendered":"Capturing the Weight of the Unspoken"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Mr Raeden Richardson<\/strong>\u00a0is an Australian writer. His debut novel,\u00a0The Degenerates<\/em>, is a bold exploration of grief, memory and the limits of language. Shaped by his time at Yale-NUS College, his narratives traverse continents and decades, probing fractures of the human condition. A graduate of the Iowa Writers\u2019 Workshop, his work has been featured in\u00a0The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>,\u00a0Griffith Review<\/em>, Australian literary magazine\u00a0Kill Your Darlings<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0New Australian Fiction<\/em>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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For Mr Raeden Richardson, writing is more than an act of creation \u2014 it is one of preservation, an attempt to capture the weight of memory, navigate loss and make sense of the ineffable. His debut novel,\u00a0The Degenerates<\/em>, is a raw and unflinching portrayal of grief, longing and human frailty, influenced by his encounters with silence and the struggle to articulate what often resists language.

Born and raised in Melbourne, Mr Richardson remembers a childhood filled with unstructured freedom. \u201cI grew up in the outer suburbs of southeastern Melbourne, in a place called Waverley Park,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the early 2000s, there were lots of big housing developments just getting started \u2014 empty lots, vast open spaces that seemed to fill up my mind.\u201d He and his friends roamed freely, sneaking into unfinished construction sites. \u201cWe would make up stories and write them, often about serial killers on the loose and this strange wasteland we lived in,\u201d he recalled with a laugh.

His Catholic upbringing also shaped his storytelling. \u201cI was constantly in church, and I wanted to be an altar boy. I was quite devout,\u201d he said. Immersed in biblical stories, he was drawn to the grandeur of Christ\u2019s miracles and the moral struggles of his followers. As Mr Richardson grew older, his engagement with faith evolved, but the imprint of those narratives remained. \u201cI started thinking about how stories record and make sense of suffering, the passing of time, and the possibilities of myth, art and writing as a way to acknowledge \u2014 and maybe redeem \u2014 the suffering of a life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Mr Richardson at the Yale-NUS inauguration in 2013<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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A STORYTELLER’S GLOBAL CANVAS\u00a0
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His journey took a decisive turn when he attended Yale-NUS College in Singapore \u2014 his first time leaving Australia. Yale-NUS provided an intimate learning environment, one that dismantled traditional academic hierarchies and encouraged students to engage with a truly global intellectual landscape. \u201cGoing to Singapore and being a part of Yale-NUS was this incredible opportunity to be uprooted and, at the same time, to be welcomed into a new place,\u201d he said. \u201cIt provided me a chance to engage with thinkers, philosophers, writers and artists from around the world.\u201d<\/p>

During this period, he also faced one of the most difficult moments of his life \u2014 the suicide of a friend. \u201cIt was my first encounter with loss like that,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember distinctly this tremendous silence that fell across my classmates and within myself, realising that this tool I\u2019d been developing \u2014 writing, articulation, specificity \u2014 was blunt when it came to things like this in life. It renders your language useless.\u201d That silence stayed with him, becoming a question that would shape\u00a0The Degenerates<\/em>: What happens when language fails?\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The cover of The Degenerates<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The novel \u2014 which took seven years to complete \u2014 is a sprawling, multi-layered narrative of grief, addiction and memory, moving between Melbourne, Mumbai in the 1970s and New York in 2016. These settings are integral to the novel\u2019s structure, reflecting the characters\u2019 fractured journeys through time and place. It has been compared to Irvine Welsh\u2019s cult classic\u00a0Trainspotting<\/em>\u00a0for its visceral, lyrical intensity, weaving together the grotesque and transcendent.<\/p>

Reflecting on one of the novel\u2019s key settings, Mr Richardson noted: \u201cOne of the beautiful things about Melbourne, if I might be so audacious to say, is that it has this quality of celebrating the battler, the degenerate or the little guy who is flawed in some way. That\u2019s the spirit of the book too \u2014 centring these figures one might not necessarily want to be friends with.\u201d

Some readers have found the flawed nature of his characters unsettling. \u201cI had a friend who was quite troubled by how unlikeable they all were. They do such bad things, they steal things, they lie, they get into trouble.\u201d But that was the point, said Mr Richardson. \u201cThese characters might drive you crazy. But they are still worth holding on to, even if they are ruinous in some way.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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THE ROAD TO ACCLAIM<\/strong><\/p>

Despite his belief in the work, publication was uncertain. \u201cAlthough I loved the book dearly and believed in its integrity, I didn\u2019t think it would ever be published because I felt like it was too out there, too much, too unruly,\u201d he said.<\/p>

Even when it finally found a home with Australian publisher Text Publishing, seeing it in print was surreal. \u201cFor years, the book existed in different forms \u2014 handwritten notes in a journal, then typed up, double-spaced in a Word document, then a PDF I printed out,\u201d he recalled. \u201cBut I had never actually held it in two hands as a printed book, flipping through the pages side by side. That was the fullest expression of it, the endpoint of the book, but it still felt strange \u2014 like I was looking at it from the outside.\u201d<\/p>

Since its release,\u00a0The Degenerates<\/em>\u00a0has received critical acclaim.\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>\u00a0called it an \u201cambitious debut that pulses with life and language\u201d, while\u00a0Liminal Magazine<\/em>\u00a0described it as \u201cbrimming with vitality, humour, intelligence and brilliant writing\u201d. Now, Mr Richardson is already immersed in his next novel, an ambitious historical work set in first-century Rome and Judea.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Mr Richardson (right) with poet Lawrence Ypil at a Yale-NUS event <\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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FUTURE OF STORYTELLING<\/strong>

His advice for aspiring writers is to practise equanimity. \u201cYou\u2019ll write something one day and feel like it\u2019s the most wondrous, exciting, provocative and enchanting thing in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the next day, you\u2019ll read the same thing and think it\u2019s so boring, derivative and useless that it should just be thrown out.\u201d He encouraged young writers to resist the pressure to rush. \u201cBeing able to shift your relationship with time is very important. You have to slow down. Letting the work develop and cultivate is crucial.\u201d<\/p>

Looking ahead, Mr Richardson sees exciting challenges for literature in a rapidly evolving world. \u201cThe pressures of artificial intelligence and the ways in which it can, in some ways, imitate conventional storytelling are important,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting because artists and writers will have to shift and constantly be thinking about what makes a human novel distinct from an artificial one.\u201d<\/p>

Beyond the craft, literature itself serves a deeper purpose. \u201cOne of the most exciting things is that people from radically different cultures can come together through their stories,\u201d he said. \u201cIt reminds us how tremendously connected the world is.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Mr Richardson presenting to students at Melbourne High School<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shaped by faith, loss and wanderlust, the work of author Mr Raeden Richardson (Yale-NUS \u201917) searches for meaning in grief and myth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2485,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2484"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8129,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions\/8129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}