I’ve just finished Tara June Winch’s second novel which won the prestigious Miles Franklin Award in Australia. It tells the story of August Gondiwindi, a young woman of Aborigine origin from New South Wales, who returns from London to her small hometown to attend her grandfather’s funeral.
Intertwined with August’s story are two other plot lines. One consists of pages from a Wiradjuri dictionary that her late grandfather, Albert, had been writing. In describing the meaning of the words, he tells his own life story.
The third strand consists of the memoirs of a Lutheran missionary, Ferdinand Greenleaf, who lived in the local area from 1881 to 1916. A decent, honourable man, confronted with the vile cruelty of the white settlers against the aborigines: his chapters provide a valuable and horrific history lesson.
Winch has a great descriptive ability regarding Australian flora and fauna, creates a gallery of interesting likeable characters, and tells the story of the injustices inflicted upon her people very movingly.
Reading some reviews, I thought for some reason The Yield might be rather dull and worthy, terribly PC and a bit of a slog. Not at all! There’s lots of warmth and humour and a gallery of interesting Aussies. And Tara is an excellent storyteller.
When August attends a family gathering, early in the book, I came across this sentence, which piqued my curiosity:
“Archie Roach was trying to be heard from the old speakers of the portable CD player.”
Hmm. An Australian singer, I’d never heard of. Of course, I got digging.
First, I came across a Booktopia interview with Ms Winch in which she made her enthusiasm for Archie very apparent.
“What were three works of art – book or painting or piece of music, etc – you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?”
“The entire album of Charcoal Lane by Archie Roach. Wole Soyinka’s Art, Dialogue, and Outrage, and seeing Picasso’s Guernica just recently in Madrid: that artwork and that experience will propel me a few more books I reckon, just like Neruda’s “I’m Explaining a Few Things” has in the past.”
She then goes on to talk about her novel
“It’s called The Yield and it’s my love letter to the past and the future of Australia. I said what I really wanted to say for my grandparents, my parents, my siblings and my daughter equally. That’s something to me and I just hope it translates to something for everyone.”
» Tara June Winch answers our Ten Terrifying Questions!The Booktopian
I soon realised that Archie (who passed away in July 2022) and his wife Ruby Hunter (1955 -2010), were both members of the Stolen Generations: victims of the forced removal of First Nations children from their families.
There were many sad stories to be told. Ruby and Archie both very gifted songwriters and singers, became icons of Australian popular music helped but the record straight by their music. Two national treasures!
For the past fortnight I’ve been Googling with gusto.
The fate of the Stolen Generations led me to Philip Noyce’s 2002 movie Rabbit-Proof Fence, which some of you may have seen. Set in 1931, it’s the story of three young half-breed girls who flee into the Outback, trying to get back to their families after being forcibly relocated to work as domestic servants. The baddie, A.O. Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines, is played by that well-known Aussie, Kenneth Branagh.
I discovered that 26 January is Australia Day. January 26 1788 is the day Sir Arthur Phillip raised the British flag at Warrane (Sydney Cove) to claim the land as a British Colony. Among the First Nations it is referred to as Invasion Day. In Victoria Park in Sydney, the Yabun Festival, a free celebration of aborigine music, art and dance takes place and provides another historical perspective.
I stumbled across the Aussie literary blogspot, Whispering Gums, which provides excellent coverage of Tara June Winch and other local writers.
My musical explorations inspired me to produce a Spotify playlist of Aborigine artists and artists who’ve they’ve worked with like Midnight Oil, The Art Orchestra of Australia and Paul Kelly. An imaginary soundtrack for a film version of the novel.
A cast of thousands: Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, Gurrumul, Saltwater Band, Yothu Yindi, Jimmy Little, Warumpi Band, Tjintu Desert Band, Midnight Oil, Apakatjah, Bob Randall, Australian Art Orchestra, Gawurra, Frank Yamma, A.B. Original, Dan Sultan, Paul Kelly, Alice Skye, Stiff Gins, Emily Wurramara, Seaman Dan, Auriel Andrew, Ilkari Maru, Yung Warriors, Yartulu Yartulu Band, Thelma Plum, Bumpy, Coloured Stone, Troy Cassar- Daley, Tasman Keith, Emma Donovan, etc etc
It’s seven hours long: something to dip into and explore at your leisure. Gurrumul and Jimmy Little were the only artists I’d heard of two weeks ago.
What I’d like to know from you now is:
What other music, novels, films, art, dance etc to continue my Australian explorations?
The late, great Gurrumul was one of the greats. A remarkable voice!
Jimmy Little was Australia’s first aborigine pop star.
After a silence of 15 years, he returned with Messenger, a fine album covering modern Australian favourites. Well worth your time.
Here’s that blogspot I mentioned.
https://whisperinggums.com/2019/08/26/canberra-writers-festival-2019-day-2-session-1-identity-tara-june-winch-with-yvette-henry-holt/
And here’s my playlist – a mere seven hours long.
Look on it as a jukebox to be dipped into rather than a playlist to be played from beginning to end.
Magnificent work KFD, thank you. I look forward to dipping in, as will Mrs thep. I’ll buy the book too.
Loved Gurrumul and Archie Roach – sad losses.
I would love to hear Mrs thep’s suggestions and comments. I’ve been learning so much!
I knew about Skinnyfish Music in Darwin but now I have discovered this record label based in Alice Springs.
https://www.caamamusic.com.au/
And this organisation
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (aiatsis.gov.au)
who have done a great Spotify playlist.
Our book circle have read two other Australian novels and enjoyed both enormously.
David Ireland’s The Glass Canoe.
https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-david-irelands-the-glass-canoe-25077
and Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/08/peter-carey-how-i-wrote-the-true-history-of-the-kelly-gang
Turns out she’s read The Yield, and loved it. She thinks it’s in a box somewhere, but it’ll turn up when we move.
She is clearly a lady of impeccable taste!
How did she find out about it? That Miles Franklin Award must have helped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Franklin_Award
A good place to look for quality Oz fiction!
I just met my librarian pal, Fredrik, who is very well informed. He had not heard of The Yield or the prize it won.
I’ve had it on my list (big black notebook actually) for a while, one of the people I follow on “BookTube” was raving about it. But there’s an awful lot of books in that notebook…
If you want other Aussie book recommendations I’d advice you to read “From the Wreck” by Jane Rawson, and “The Rain Heron” and “Flames” by Robbie Arnott. All brilliant, especially the first two.
Thanks @Locust! I will look out for those at the English Book Shop on Söder.
You really have your finger on the Aussie pulse.
Yesterday DuCool and I and our pals ate at an Australian pub on Folkungatan! The Roo and Elk.
https://www.instagram.com/rooandelk/?hl=en
Small, cosy, friendly staff, nice food, Aussie music,,,.. A very pleasant surprise!
Kangaroo steak and chips? Prawns on the barbie?
(That link doesn’t work for me right now, so if there’s a menu to see, I couldn’t!)
It was an uncomplicated menu, @Locust, so I did not have great hopes. But I was wrong to be pessimistic.
I took an ” Aussie Burger” and it was very tasty indeed.
The place is run by an Australian lady called Kylie and she puts an extra bit of effort into the cooking. A perfect example of Small is Beautiful.
Did it have canned beetroot in it? Not an Aussie burger otherwise…
Fascinating! Even Jamie adds beetroot to his Aussie burger.
https://www.delicious.com.au/recipes/aussie-style-burgers/OONRAwFV?r=recipes/collections/ne3x8zsd
To my shame, I can’t remember the details of the ingredients, but certainly noticed they were a little unconventional. In a good way.
In the last few days I’ve realised how very ignorant I am about Australia. I Googled.
The population is 26 million and 89% live in urban areas.
The 55th most populous country in the world.
Canned beetroot in a burger? Sounds like a Swedish Biff Lindström to me (if you also add capers and/or pickled cucumber, all of course finely diced and mixed in with the minced meat)…yum!
I’m afraid that my idea of Australia comes from the books by Ivan Southall that I read as a child – a constant fight for survival, basically! 😀
Nice work, @Locust! You are, as ever, a source of fascinating information.
I had never heard of Ivan Southall. I have a sneaking suspicion he had a higher profile in Sweden than the UK.
He was clearly a gifted writer of Young Adult Fiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Southall
My childhood was dominated by Canadian writer Willard Price who wrote about the adventures of Hal and Roger Hunt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Price
Amazon Adventure, Volcano Adventure, South Sea Adventure: fabulous stuff!
What a shame Willard is no longer with us to write Westminster Adventure.
Jeremy, modern-day descendant of the Hunt Brothers, ventures into Darkest Whitehall, to save the realm of King Charles.
What a sure-fire winner that would be!
I have one of Ivan Southall’s Simon Black books that I picked up because of its resemblance to an Australian Biggles. Never read it, though, it’s in a box somewhere. This one, I think.
Never read any Simon Black books, the ones I read were all about kids/young teenagers finding themselves without adults around while some disaster strike and they have to learn to survive on their own. Fire! Floods! Airplane crash + desert island life (for years and years…)!
First they moan and fight but then they start learning and working hard and thriving like true aussie champions! 😀
Sort of Lord of the Flies but for kids, and wholesome…
Having heard about Ivan Southall and his creation of Simon Black, an Australian counterpart to Biggles, I dug a little deeper.
There are some great dust jackets.
http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/ivansouthall.html
Naturally Aussie kids were keen about a hero from their own country, rather than some toffee-nosed toff from Tunbridge Wells.
I also discovered that Biggles himself had had an adventure Down Under.
http://www.biggles.info/Details/52/
Seven shillings and six pence in 1955.
Not very PC I’m afraid. All the aborigines had been recruited by the bad guys.
Yeah, Simon and Alan, that’s what you want your heroes to be called. Not Algy and Bertie.
That’s fresh beetroot roasted in the oven. Not canonical at all, way too posh. This is what we’re talking about. (For the avoidance of doubt, I rather like canned beetroot in my burger.)
I thought you meant pickled, but this can doesn’t mention any pickling goings-on – what is in the can apart from the beetroot? Must be some sort of liquid in it, innit? Beetroot juice?
List of ingredients.
Beetroot (61%), Water, Sugar, Acidity Regulator (Acetic Acid), Salt
Or, in the case of the organic jar I’ve just dug out of the larder: beetroot, vinegar, agave syrup, sea salt, onion powder, black pepper.
Made in the Netherlands, I see. Absurd to fly it all the way here just for organic. And heaven knows where the agave syrup comes from. I shall revert to good old proudly Australian non-organic in a tin.
Judging by Hubes’ reply, it’s at least slightly pickled (like me on Friday nights).
Acetic acid listed in the ingreedy-ants.
I like and indeed have some pickled beetroot, so my next home-grilled burger may well be done Aussie-style.
Well you asked for it…Jen’s been reading a lot of Aboriginal writing and strongly recommends the following:
Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson
Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman
Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller
The White Girl by Tony Birch
Also Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey, who isn’t Aboriginal as far as I know.
Something we’d both recommend, if you allow non-fiction in your group, is Summertime by Danielle Celemajer, a harrowing yet beautiful book about living through the awful Black Summer of 2019-20. If I was still in the blurb-writing business I’d say that Jimmy the Pig will live in your heart for ever…
No idea if these are available in Sweden of course, much less if you read in Swedish, but booktopia.com.au is a good place to look. I presume they ship overseas. If you want to dig deeper, you’ll find this interesting: https://www.booktopia.com.au/first-nations-of-australia/promo3284.html?src=promo
Nice work Jen! Please thank her. And thank you!
I’m going to look carefully through all these suggestions from yourself and Locust and then share them with my bibliophile buddies.
Booktopia looks great, but I can probably get a fair number of the books here.
I now realise that Nardi Simpson, author of the Song of the Crocodile, is one of the Stiff Gins.
https://thecud.com.au/live/content/stiff-gins
It was an uncomplicated menu, @Locust, so I did not have great hopes. But I was wrong to be pessimistic.
I took an ” Aussie Burger” and it was very tasty indeed.
The place is run by an Australian lady called Kylie and she puts an extra bit of effort into the cooking. A perfect example of Small is Beautiful.
Time to visit Oz mate.
Also peruse the radio programmes of 3RRR and 3PBS – plenty of Local music and esp RRR arts and culture.
Here’s new surf band from Darwin
https://www.kingstingrayofficial.com/
Nice one, Junior!
It’s not every day I hear a surf band from Darwin. They are very uplifting and energetic: a treat live I’m sure.
I had an email chat with my Cousin Andy in Sydney about Australian artists that he had seen.
Sadly all of them have passed except the Stiff Gins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiff_Gins
Both Nardi Simpson and Kaleena Briggs are dedicated to exploring their Aborigine roots.
Now, here they are singing in Nardi Simpson’s native language, Yuwaalaraay.
The Sydney Children’s Choir led me to the Gondwana indigenous children’s choir which was founded to preserve indigenous languages through singing in them.
https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/culture/article/2017/06/29/indigenous-childrens-choir-thats-keeping-stories-language-and-tradition-alive
Bunuba, D’harawal, Yidinji and Gadigal are some of the languages they have sung in.
Here’s a short film about the Gondwana Choir working together with the Vienna Boys Choir!
This afternoon’s discovery is Wilma Reading a jazz singer from Cairns in the Northern Territories who achieved great international fame and sung with Duke Ellington.
“The jazz singer, who grew up in Cairns during the 1940s and 1950s, left Australia for New York before the 1967 referendum to include Aboriginal people in the census.
It was there, in the US, where her career caught fire, touring with Duke Ellington and becoming the first Australian guest on The Johnny Carson show.
But while she was making waves overseas, back home, Indigenous people were not yet considered citizens.
“When I left Australia I was an Australian,” she told the ABC in Sydney this week.
“When I came back, I was Indigenous.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-02/jazz-singer-wilma-reading-at-sydney-jazz-festival/11659422
A regular on the Morecambe and Wise Show!
https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/living-black/article/wilma-reading-a-trailblazing-jazz-icon/qohcjxh61
Wilma had quite a career!
You certainly have unearthed a whole heap of fascinating stuff in this thread, KFD.
But … erm …. Cairns is in Queensland, not the Northern Territory.
Mind you, it is quite a long way north in Queensland.
I am seriously impressed. How do you know these things?? I’m pleased with myself that I know that Cairns is in Australia and not Scotland. Not too many aborigines in the Highlandswhich helped me .get it right.
I’m kicking myself now.
Cairns, of course, is the gateway to all those wonderful underwater worlds.
I blame my poor memory on having enjoyed one too many great barrier reefers!
I mentioned Wilma Reading to soe friends over lunch and one of them countered with Evonne Goolagong Cowley, the magnificently successful Australian tennis player, who did a great deal to put aborigines on the map.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Evonne_Goolagong_Cawley
Bloody hell KFD I’ve been living in Australia for over 40 years and heaps of this is new to me!
“Googling With Gusto” will surely be the title of your autobiography.
A couple of things – I think (without actually Googling, I don’t have the gusto for it)) that the members of King Stingray are descendants of members of Yothu Yindi.
And re Australian authors – if you’re into thrillers Jane Harper has written a few crackers, including “The Dry” which was made into an excellent film starring Eric Bana
Onward…
I’m reading Jane Harper’s new one, Exiles, and finding it hard going, sadly. Excellent setup, back in the bush, but slow and way too talky. Definitely start with The Dry, KFD, or The Lost Man.
I will certainly be looking out for Jane Harper, Mike.
The Queen of Outback Noir! It looks I might be giving John Rebus a rest and heading for sunnier climes to get to know Aaron Falk.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/17/the-dry-completely-changed-my-life-jane-harper-australias-queen-of
The movie of The Dry is the 15th highest grossing Aussie film.
https://www.flicks.com.au/news/record-breaking-australian-film-the-dry-reaches-a-fantastic-20-million-at-the-box-office/
It’s not been released in the UK.
I didn’t like it. Lovely light and dry northern Victoria scenery. Found it a bit too much of nothing. Clearly in the minority as I think a follow up is in the works.
Not sure about that, @Junior Wells.
I checked and it was released here in Sweden last year. But the reviews were pretty lukewarm and it sank without trace.
We all enjoy a bit of noir set in our own backyard.
I read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo early days in Swedish and quite enjoyed it. But I thought it was all very Swedish: Konsum, IKEA, surströmming Dagens Nyheter, Systembolaget etc. No chance of exporting this, I thought
When I discovered a while later that it had become a big international hit, I was extremely surprised.
KFD – “The Dry” can be streamed in Sweden on Viaplay.
Thanks for the tip, Duke!
I think I’ll go for the novel. I suspect that I’ll get an even more intense Outback Noir experience by reading it while working my way through a six pack of Aussie beer.
I think you’ll agree that I can’t do better than Cooper’s Best Extra Stout!
http://nagrakalla.blogspot.com/2010/12/coopers-best-extra-stout-63.html
Thanks @Mousey for a really good chuckle. “Googling with Gusto” will now definitely be the title of my autobiography!
You are quite right about the Yothu Yindi connection.
https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/king-stingray-new-band-with-yothu-yindi-bloodline-drop-debut-track-2783522
Spotify is an excellent tool for new discoveries.
I found Wilma Reading on this excellent playlist of female singers with indigenous roots.
I was curious to find out about other Australians with an aborigine background, which led to me stumbling across this very informative and readable book by free-lance journalist, Ilsa Sharp.
Ilsa clearly has a great fondness for Australia and Australians which makes her book even better.
http://www.e4thai.com/e4e/images/pdf2/(Culture%20Shock!%20Guides%20)%20Ilsa%20Sharp-CultureShock!%20Australia_%20A%20Survival%20Guide%20to%20Customs%20and%20Etiquette%20%20-Marshall%20Cavendish%20Corporation%20(2009).pdf
The book is full of entertaining facts and very well-written.
For example, how many of you knew that Erroll Flynn was born at Battery Point in Tasmania?
The Culture Quiz on Page 393 is rather fun.
Films, music, food…
I’m going to enjoy dipping into it and broadening my knowledge.
If you’re in a Tasmania sort of mood, a really excellent novel is Matthew Kneale’s English Passangers. Set in 1857, it deals with the decimation of the island’s aboriginal population. One of its characters, an aboriginal named Peevay, is one of my favourite fictional characters.
Seconded. Also Gould’s Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan, and, if you’re in a non-fiction mood, Nicholas Shakespeare’s In Tasmania.
Thanks Gary!
What an excellent contribution to our explorations! Here’s a little more about the novel for anyone interested.
https://foxedquarterly.com/penelope-lively-matthew-kneale-literary-review/
And crikey! Here are two more novels on about the transportation of the Tasmanian aborigines. A dark page in Australian history.
https://books.openedition.org/pulm/14238?lang=en
Hey, guess what? As part of the extensive research I conducted for the above literary review, I discovered that the term “aborigines” has racist connotations and the term “aboriginals” is preferred. So that makes you a racist. I’ve reported you to the mods.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2015/08/why-saying-aborigine-isnt-ok-8-facts-about-indigenous-people-in-australia/
Or ‘First Nations people’.
Yeah nobody uses “aborigine” in present day Australia. Aboriginal, First Nations or my own preferred “indigenous”
Thanks for putting me straight, Gary. I had a sneaking suspicion my terminology was out-of-date.
And thanks for “indigenous”, Mousey. I’ll use that for the next 50 posts!
I’m looking forward to that indigenous hamper!
https://www.aggiegifts.com.au/products/indigenous-food-gift-hamper
Or bush tucker hamper as we call it.
Corsair tinned goanna.
This is a very interesting thread but I think it’s worth highlighting the incredible complexities when it comes to terminology.
First Nation is generally considered most respectful (though not by everyone) and when Indigenous is used, it must, always, be capitalised.
Most respectful of all and in accordance with the spirit of exploration evident in this thread, is to find out more about an individual’s language group.
There were more than 250 languages spoken at the time of the British Invasion with many different dialects, a linguistic diversity which is reflected in other cultural aspects and goes some way toward explaining the inherent difficulty of categorisation.
And yes, The Yield is fabulous.
Thanks @garyjohn! What an excellent, thought-provoking contribution.
Reading The Yield has certainly opened my eyes to a whole area of Australian history of which I was pitifully ignorant. Not least the enormous linguistic diversity.
I look forward to learning more.
I confess. I am partisan. My late mother spoke Welsh when when she was growing up in the Prescelly Hills in Dyfed and only learnt Engish when she was 10 years old.
I now live in Sweden where in the north the Same people are struggling to keep their language and culture alive.
Here is Mari Boine from Norway. What a wonderful ambassador for her language!
My neck of the woods – Murwillumbah – is in Bundjalung Country, which stretches from Ipswich in SE QLD down to Grafton in NSW. The Bundjalung Nation is made up of no fewer than 15 separate tribal groups, which speak 15 dialects between them. Arakwal, Banbai, Birbai, Galiabal, Gidabal, Gumbainggeri, Jigara, Jugambal, Jugumbir (Yugembeh), Jungai, Minjungbal, Ngacu, Ngamba, Nyangbal and Widjabal – it’s very hard to get your head around it all.
When I first arrived in Oz and encountered the custom of acknowledging Traditional Owners of wherever you happened to be – eg the Vice-Chancellor at my stepson’s graduation ceremony – it felt like pointless virtue-signalling. Now I’ve been here for 10 years or so it feels absolutely right and normal, although whether the Traditional Owners feel any progress has been made is possibly open to question.
Wow! What an interesting comment, @mikethep.
I’m very impressed that you know the names of so many of the languages.
Hard to get your head around it indeed!
Googling Bundjalung brought me to the Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Collective.
https://muurrbay.org.au/languages/bundjalung/
There’s a lot to read about the different languages
and even some examples.
Wanah yirrali-ngahyumah.
Don’t (speak in) English.
Yuh ngali yanah buyan gala djahnanah.
Let’s go later when the wind stops.
My personal favourite even if I won’t have so much use of it in Sweden!
Nyarram mala behn gudjahrra.
The frilled-neck lizard fell into a hole.
Here’s an explanation of how to acknowledge traditional elders
‘I begin today by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we today and pay my respects to their Elders past and present. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today.’
https://www.indigenous.gov.au/contact-us/welcome_acknowledgement-country#:~:text=The%20words%20are%3A,Strait%20Islander%20peoples%20here%20today.
This thread has been quite a learning curve!
I cannot tell a lie, I copied and pasted from Wikipedia!
Thanks @Gary. That Amnesty page had lots of useful information.
Not least, the story of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tent_Embassy
Here’s a trailer for a film about it. Black Power in Australia.
Tucker! What a wonderful word!
On a par with nosh, grub and vittles when it comes to talking about a hearty meal.
I’ve not made much mention of the wonderful Whispering Gums literary website which I stumbled across when reading about The Yield.
https://whisperinggums.com/
A treat for any bibliophile!
For example, @Locust mentioned Jane Rawson’s From the Wreck.
Here’s a review of her debut.
https://whisperinggums.com/2015/04/21/jane-rawson-a-wrong-turn-at-the-office-of-unmade-lists-review/
“A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists is a fun, absurd, clever book in which Rawson somehow marries her very real concerns about the future of our earth with a belief that human compassion and ingenuity will survive, and wraps it up in an exploration of the complex relationship of imagination to reality. Imagination, Rawson seems to be saying, is the real stuff of life.”
Here’s the Guardian’s review of Rawson’s From the Wreck
“Jane Rawson’s award-winning From the Wreck (Picador, £14.99) is founded on historical fact: in 1859 the steamship Admella was wrecked off Australia with the loss of more than 100 lives. Only two passengers survived, one of them being George Hills, Rawson’s great-great-grandfather. In the novel George saves the second survivor, a woman who later mysteriously disappears. The story is told from George’s point of view as he is haunted by survivor guilt, and from the viewpoint of the woman, who turns out to be a shape-shifting alien. The power of this singular novel lies in Rawson’s ability to meld seemingly disparate narrative elements into a convincing whole that movingly explores themes of loss, loneliness and guilt.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/12/best-recent-science-fiction-review-roundup
It’s a novel about a shape-shifting alien, but this shape-shifting alien novel will make you cry buckets towards the end! Can’t recommend it enough.
You’ve really got me interested @Locust.
From googling about the books that you and @mikethep mentioned, it seems that Australia is producing a lot of good sci fi.
Mike mentioned Terra Nullius.
Here’s an excellent article about the author.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/australia-books-blog/2017/aug/22/speculative-fiction-is-a-powerful-political-tool-from-war-of-the-worlds-to-terra-nullius
“Claire G Coleman knew she needed to write a novel when she visited a memorial to a massacre on her family’s traditional lands.
Coleman, who identifies with the south coast Noongar people, had been travelling around Australia in a caravan for two-and-a-half years. “When I returned to country, I went to a museum in a small town where my grandfather was born,” she tells Guardian Australia. “There was an entire section of the museum dedicated to my family.”
She was invited to visit the memorial and the experience compelled her to write something that would grapple with this history: her own, her family’s and Australia’s. She wrote solidly for nine months – still in her caravan, still travelling – the novel that would become her debut, Terra Nullius.”
Sci fi to talk about the history of the indigenous peoples!
“A lifelong science fiction reader, Coleman was influenced by HG Wells’ seminal sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds, in which aliens and humans clash following an extraterrestrial invasion of Earth. “I read that The War of the Worlds was inspired by a discussion that Wells had with someone, where he was trying to explain the situation of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. The War of the Worlds and Terra Nullius are approaching the same question from opposite sides.”
@Kaisfatdad
Just finished watching a recent Australian movie directed and starring indigenous woman Leah Purcell. Period thing set in the Victorian high country. Pretty tough but excellent.” The Drover’s Wife Molly Johnson”.
Correction Snowy Mountains region in NSW. And its The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson.
Thanks Junior! Nice work! I’ll add it to IMDB Aussie film list and watch out for it.
The scenery is wonderful!
Have you seen the Proposition with Nick Cave. Quite brutal. Another period thing. A lot of hot dry western Queensland scenery. Good soundtrack too as you’d expect.
I saw Ghosts of the Civil Dead starring Cave many, many years ago. That was very brutal too. But bless him, he also acted in and provided the soundtrack for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which is one of my all-time favourite films.
He was fucking scarey in GOTCD. High junk phase and he was on. Soundtrack was good too if memory serves.
Boy it’s grim. Terrific cast, though, and whether it’s grimmer than Wake in Fright is up for discussion.
Magnificent film. Leah Purcell is colossal.
https://www.theage.com.au/culture/movies/leah-purcell-is-four-midable-as-elvis-mystery-road-dominate-aacta-award-nominations-20221018-p5bqrh.html?btis
Thanks Junior! You are really doing us proud by bringing some really interesting Aussie films to the table.
Reading about the nominations for the Australian Academy Awards was an eye-opener. I didn’t even know there were any! Silly me! Every country should honour the successes of their domestic film industry to boost both local cinema audiences and international interest.
Interesting that there is an award for Best Indie Film.
Nominations;
A Stitch in Time, Akoni, Darklands, Lonesome, Pieces, Smoke Between Trees
I heartily agreed with this quote:
Emile Sherman, the Oscar-winning producer of The King’s Speech, The Power of the Dog and The Stranger, believes award nominations help audiences find good films amid the whirlwind of cinema and streaming releases.
“There are so many films and TV series out there that awards play an important role in helping with the cut-through that’s needed,” Sherman says. “Publicity and awards are ways for films to be talked about when they’re not fuelled by massive spending on billboards.”
I am feeling rather chuffed today. I was so impressed by @Locust‘s enthusiasm for From the Wreck that I googled to see if the wonderful Science Fiction Bookshop in the Old Town had a copy.
They did so I braved the very dreich weather and the hordes of tourists to go there and purchase it.
Stockholmers are very lucky to have the Sci Fi Bookshop.
It reminds me of the magnificent Dark they were and golden-eyed in Soho.
A bookshop that is bursting at the seams with books, comics, manga, DVDs and is staffed by very friendly, knowledgeable Orcs. What more can you ask??
The English Passengers , The Dry and Terra Nullius will also be purchased very soon @gary and @mikethep and @mousey.
Recommendations such as yours, are what this place is all about!
You’re in for a fantastic(al) ride, @Kaisfatdad!
Love the SciFi bookstore, but it’s always very crowded, so I often leave earlier than I’d like, just because I can’t stand rubbing elbows with everyone and their shapeshifter…
Probably the busiest bookstore in Sweden!
From the Wreck is what I’d call a literary sci-fi novel, the sci-fi element is a large part of the story, and many shapes of weird, but blends in with the realistic so seamlessly that I never thought of it as a sci-fi novel while, or after, reading it!
Yikes! What a scandal! The AW community now has to come to terms with Bundjalunggate.
@Mikethep has now confessed that he is not actually fluent in ..
Arakwal, Banbai, Birbai, Galiabal, Gidabal, Gumbainggeri, Jigara, Jugambal, Jugumbir (Yugembeh), Jungai, Minjungbal, Ngacu, Ngamba, Nyangbal and Widjabal
And there I was, convínced he was a fluent speaker in all those Aboriginal languages! Where will this end.
There is some great material in YT about all the many different languages.
This BBC clip is very enjoyable.
And this is stupendous. Wise bunch these Elders!