AustLit

Foreword: Carl Warburton, author of Buffaloes (a book that everyone should read), knows Arnhem Land as few know it. In White Poppies we are again taken there, and although this time the author takes his first plunge into fiction, there is no doubt about his source of inspiration. He writes because he loves Australia, and he puts his drama into Arnhem Land because of his faith in that remote part of the continent. It is Warburton himself speaking of the North when to the remark of his charming heroine, "Don't you love this country?" Carthew replies:

'Love it! It has been my one love for years ... What is wrong with this country? ... What is the hoodoo that hangs over the Northern Territory? ... It has fine harbours, navigable rivers, mineral belts, rich agricultural and pastoral lands ... and a miserable population of four thousand whites and Asiatics ... It is the land of Forgotten People.'

W. R. Charlton.