AustLit

'Born in Cloncurry, Queensland and affiliated with the Waanji people of the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Austral¬ian author Alexis Wright wrote her debut novel Plains of Promise in 1997. Wright deals with is¬sues such as the brutal assimilation of Aboriginal people at St. Dominic’s Mission and their struggles to maintain connection with their communities, families and homelands. Since the settlers sepa¬rated Aboriginal family members and interfered in their relations with the land and each other, these relations had to be reinvented. Aborigi¬nal characters make use of the land and natural world to communicate to each other and respond to the violence of colonisation.' (p. 29)