The Kimberley region of Australia is a place of dreams. The most enduring and significant of these are, of course, those belonging to its indigenous inhabitants who have been there, it is believed, for around 40,000 years. Jump forward to recent centuries and we find new dreamers - the pearlers, the gold prospectors, the pastoralists,, … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Kimberley dreaming
First Nations Australians
unDISCLOSED, the second national indigenous art triennial
Indigenous Australian art has, over the last few decades, become big business in Australia and overseas, and for good reason. It is unique and it is beautiful. Most Australians, I suspect, only know of the "traditional" dot painting style of the Central Australian Desert and perhaps the wood carvings of the Torres Strait Islands. However, … Continue reading unDISCLOSED, the second national indigenous art triennial
Monday musings on Australian literature: Noongar/Nyungar, and the importance of place
Conceptions of home and understanding of place are the central issues in Noongar author Kim Scott's Miles Franklin award winning novel, That deadman dance, which I reviewed last year. From the opening pages of the novel Scott explores notions of home, as the white settlers confront the indigenous inhabitants of the land they are trying to … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Noongar/Nyungar, and the importance of place
Monday musings on Australian literature: Louisa Atkinson, and indigenous Australians
Time for another Monday Musings highlighting an Australian literary pioneer, this time Louisa Atkinson. I came across Atkinson a few years ago when I was researching Australian women writers for Wikipedia. She's one of those women who achieved much in her field but who, I believe, is little known. She was a journalist, novelist and … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Louisa Atkinson, and indigenous Australians
Monday musings on Australian literature: Australia’s first Children’s Laureates
It has been so busy here at Monday Musings that I am late with this announcement ... but that doesn't mean it's not worth making! On December 6th, 2011, the idea of an Australian Children's Laureate was inaugurated with the appointment of not one, but two, children's authors to the role. They are Alison Lester … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Australia’s first Children’s Laureates
Monday musings on Australian literature: Asian Australian writers
Australia is an immigrant country, with the first immigrants, the original Aboriginal Australians, believed to have arrived 40-60,000 (there are arguments about this!) years ago via the Indonesian archipelago. They established what is now regarded as one of the longest surviving cultures on earth. Today, though, I'm going to write on some of our more recent … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Asian Australian writers
Alexis Wright, Carpentaria
Alexis Wright's Carpentaria won the Miles Franklin Award in 2007 and I read it back around then but it's a book that keeps coming back to me so I thought it was time I shared why. This won't be my usual review, but rather random comments on the ideas that float around my head. First though, you … Continue reading Alexis Wright, Carpentaria
Delicious descriptions from Down Under: Kim Scott on confronting the new
Here is the first of two or more (depending on how the spirit moves me) Delicious Descriptions from Kim Scott's book That deadman dance. My first one presents two excerpts which describe people confronting the new. First, the British settlers during their expedition to find land: They found a path, rocky and scattered with fine … Continue reading Delicious descriptions from Down Under: Kim Scott on confronting the new
Kim Scott, That deadman dance
(Image courtesy Picador Australia) About a third of the way into Kim Scott's novel That deadman dance is this: We thought making friends was the best thing, and never knew that when we took your flour and sugar and tea and blankets that we'd lose everything of ours. We learned your words and songs and stories, and never … Continue reading Kim Scott, That deadman dance
Monday musings on Australian literature: Indigenous Australian autobiographies
When I was a child my father told me to be proud I was of "aboriginal descent". Perhaps it was the silence surrounding his words that made them resonate as they did; I'd certainly heard no such thing anywhere else in my life, certainly not in my reading or schooling. There didn't seem much in … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Indigenous Australian autobiographies
