AustLit

'I first met Purtungana when I was working at Pundulmurra College in South Hedland as a lecturer in the Indigenous Australian Language Workers Program. She was a keen student, often the first to arrive and the last to leave. As I sat with her, working steadily through learning outcomes and assessments, I realised that I was fast becoming the student and she, the teacher.' (Introduction)

'Coonardoo takes place in 1929 at Wytaliba, a remote cattle station in the north of Western Australia. It is a tragedy that spans three generations of white settlers, with the main players being Mrs Bessie (Mumae), her son Hughie and Hughie’s daughter, Phyllis. Shadowing their trajectory is Coonardoo, a young Aboriginal girl who is the same age as Hughie, and who grows up in parallel with him. Although Coonardoo and Hughie are bound to each other and the country of Wytaliba, both marry people within their cultural set, but not before conceiving a child together. It is this child that fuels Hughie’s separation from his wife. She packs herself and her daughters off to Perth but eventually the eldest daughter Phyllis, who feels an overwhelming attachment to the north-west, returns.' (Introduction)

'It's build-up time in the north-western town of Ransom, just before the big wet, when people go off the rails.

'In the midst of a bitter custody battle, an eight year old girl goes missing.

'Annie, an anthropology graduate fresh from the city, is determined to uncover the mystery of the child's disappearance.

'As Annie searches for the truth beneath the township's wild speculations, she finds herself increasingly drawn towards Mick Hooper, a muscly, seemingly laid-back bloke with secrets of his own.' (From the publisher's website.)

Jacqueline Wright points to a range of biographies of Aboriginal people that were overlooked by Nicholas Rothwell in his review of Liam Campbell's Darby : One Hundred Years of Life in a Changing Culture. Rothwell claimed that Campbell's book is 'one of one of the first comprehensive attempts at writing the biography of a traditional Aboriginal man'; Wright disputes this claim.