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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'This impassioned book - part quest, part travel book - by a novelist and writer widely published in the US and Europe - is based on two interlocking personal histories set on Australia's tropical Gulf of Carpentaria - border-line country seldom explored in writing. A quest for two very different men: the legendary Roger Jose, an itinerant European who lived in a remote Aboriginal community for half a century, in an upside down water tank with his beloved Aboriginal wife, reading literature and evolving his own radical bush philosophy. The police note on him was 'living blackfellow'. (For the author this is a personal quest, since Roger Jose claimed to be a long-lost member of his family.) Two hundred miles away one of the most degraded Aboriginal communities in Australia has been fighting for its rights. Their charismatic leader is Murrandoo Yanner, a young man committed to self-determination for his people and control over their vast traditional territory, with its rich natural resources. This highly original book is the response of a contemporary writer to his own heritage. (Source: On-line)
Notes
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Dedication: For my father, Bob Josa, who flew over Borroloola with 13 Squadron, Royal Australian Airforce in 1945.
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Epigraph:
Marndaa marndaa, / Ngali-wingkayani, / Ki-nganjinya ki-awarala, / Jali-wingkaya.
By foot, / Walking, / We two are about to go. / In this relation country of mine. / In this country, / We two are walking.
Yanyuwa song
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also sound recording.
- Also e-book.
Works about this Work
-
The Haunting of Settler Australia : Kate Grenville's The Secret River
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Postcolonial Ghosts 2010; (p. 125-142) In this essay, Sheila Collingwood-Whittick states: 'Kate Grenville's The Secret River, an elegantly-written, meticulously-crafted and extremely readable novel, provides a classic example of white Australian anxiety and ambivalence over the nation's origins. More significantly perhaps, and in direct contradiction with the author's declarations about her book, The Secret River is paradigmatic both of the difficulty settler descendants have in facing some of the grim truths of colonial history, and of their consequent inability to exorcise the ghosts that haunt the national conscience.' (p. 126)
-
Wet, in the Mindscape of the Dry: Water Tanks as Nature/Culture Signifiers
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Words on Water: Literary and Cultural Representations 2008; (p. 23-38) The author investigates the impact of Australian literature and European attitudes on water conservation in Australia. -
Towards Settler Auto-Ethnography : Nicholas Jose's Black Sheep
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Pain of Unbelonging : Alienation and Identity in Australasian Literature 2007; (p. 1-14) -
[Review] Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: The Asian Review of Books 2004;
— Review of Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola 2002 single work prose -
Intimate Strangers : Contemporary Australian Travel Writing, the Semiotics of Empathy, and the Therapeutics of Race
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Crossings : Bulletin of the International Australian Studies Association , vol. 9 no. 3 2004;
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 85 2005; (p. 69-81, notes 208-209) 'Increasingly, domestic white Australian travel narratives mobilise encounters with Aboriginality as contexts for political and ethical critiques of white hegemony that, in turn, reflect different manifestations of sympathetic white liberal discourses of reconciliation.... This paper focuses on how these narratives represent performances of a white Australian postcolonial sensibility towards Aboriginality that defines itself through a semiotics of empathy ... for Aboriginality, and how the co-ordinates of this semiotics shifted over the 1990s in response to movements in the Australian public sphere vis-à-vis the politics and ethics of reconciliation.' (Introduction)
-
Hunters of Australia
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Times Literary Supplement , 21 February no. 5212 2003; (p. 6-7)
— Review of Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola 2002 single work prose ; In Denial : The Stolen Generations and the Right 2001 single work criticism ; Looking for Blackfellas' Point : An Australian History of Place 2002 single work non-fiction ; Freedom Ride : A Freedom Rider Remembers 2002 single work autobiography -
Looking for the Black Sheep
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 19 April 2003; (p. 16)
— Review of Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola 2002 single work prose -
In Short : Non-Fiction
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 10-11 January 2004; (p. 17)
— Review of Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola 2002 single work prose ; Reflections from an Indian Diary 2003 single work prose -
Soundings from Down Under
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 17 no. 1 2003; (p. 60-63)
— Review of Armidale 1979 selected work poetry prose ; 'Unemployed at Last!' : Essays on Australian Literature to 2002 for Julian Croft 2002 anthology criticism ; The Plains 1982 single work novel ; Authority and Influence : Australian Literary Criticism 1950-2000 2001 anthology criticism extract ; Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola 2002 single work prose -
[Review] Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: The Asian Review of Books 2004;
— Review of Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola 2002 single work prose -
Intimate Strangers : Contemporary Australian Travel Writing, the Semiotics of Empathy, and the Therapeutics of Race
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Crossings : Bulletin of the International Australian Studies Association , vol. 9 no. 3 2004;
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 85 2005; (p. 69-81, notes 208-209) 'Increasingly, domestic white Australian travel narratives mobilise encounters with Aboriginality as contexts for political and ethical critiques of white hegemony that, in turn, reflect different manifestations of sympathetic white liberal discourses of reconciliation.... This paper focuses on how these narratives represent performances of a white Australian postcolonial sensibility towards Aboriginality that defines itself through a semiotics of empathy ... for Aboriginality, and how the co-ordinates of this semiotics shifted over the 1990s in response to movements in the Australian public sphere vis-à-vis the politics and ethics of reconciliation.' (Introduction) -
Towards Settler Auto-Ethnography : Nicholas Jose's Black Sheep
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Pain of Unbelonging : Alienation and Identity in Australasian Literature 2007; (p. 1-14) -
Wet, in the Mindscape of the Dry: Water Tanks as Nature/Culture Signifiers
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Words on Water: Literary and Cultural Representations 2008; (p. 23-38) The author investigates the impact of Australian literature and European attitudes on water conservation in Australia. -
The Haunting of Settler Australia : Kate Grenville's The Secret River
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Postcolonial Ghosts 2010; (p. 125-142) In this essay, Sheila Collingwood-Whittick states: 'Kate Grenville's The Secret River, an elegantly-written, meticulously-crafted and extremely readable novel, provides a classic example of white Australian anxiety and ambivalence over the nation's origins. More significantly perhaps, and in direct contradiction with the author's declarations about her book, The Secret River is paradigmatic both of the difficulty settler descendants have in facing some of the grim truths of colonial history, and of their consequent inability to exorcise the ghosts that haunt the national conscience.' (p. 126)
Awards
- 2003 shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award — Non-Fiction Prize
- Borroloola, McArthur River area, Gulf - Barkly Tablelands area, Central Northern Territory, Northern Territory,