This will hurt me...

  Zinc work, East Risdon Bay. August 2021. That Deadman Dance   by Kim Scott A masterpiece. In Bobby Wabalanginy, an intelligent and optimistic soul, Scott conjures up a narrator who will live long in the memory. Bobby, whose real name remains unpronounceable to the invaders throughout the novel, means "all of us playing together", a bitter irony given the course of events. Bobby is a marvel. Bright and eager for knowledge, he is a natural showman. These capacities allow him to shine in both his indigenous world and the newcomers to his land. Part clown, part shaman, the book does a magnificent job of naturally showing the reader the centrality of songs, music, and dance to the Noongar people of southwestern Western Australia. Bobby learns to speak, read and write in the white man's language, but a reoccurring motif throughout is the fundamental disconnect in understanding between the two cultures. His native culture is just as complex but more physical, present and eleme...

  Towards the end of the day, Tasman National Park, Tasmania. May 2021. Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss  I hope that  Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray  – “River of Dreams” in the Wiradjuri language – is but the first of many novels from the perspective of Australia’s original inhabitants as they confront the realities of invasion, colonisation and the calculated efforts to destroy over 50,000 years of continuous culture. This is the kind of book that I hope is (gently) introduced to younger readers and comes as a welcome relief from the self-mythologising nonsense that passes for historical memory in these parts. Heiss has woven a story through both a gendered and Wiradjuri lens that never seems forced or moralising. It follows many of the familiar patterns of the historical fiction romance, but in framing the central characters within the Wiradjuri cultural and linguistic tradition, what may have been a traditional tale is lifted into much more worthy territo...

  Looking southwest from Cape Raoul, Tasman National Park. May 2021. Taboo by Kim Scott Kim Scott has achieved a great feat with  Taboo . In tackling a subject so replete with immense themes - decolonisation, pain, the art of memory and forgetting - he manages to toe the line successfully like few others. Moreover, he's written an authentic and engaging book on the murder, dispossession and maltreatment of the Noongar people that is at once sombre yet optimistic. This is all the more startling from a book saturated with violence of all kinds. Violence upon violence over generations to the point where our heroes are both sullied by that violence - both perpetrators and victims - and retain the redemptive power that will be required to ensure that a persecuted people can both survive and prosper. Australia has now reached the 'truth-telling' phase of real reconciliation. After two centuries of colonial dispossession, repression masked as harmony and silent shame, this is a no...

Fish of the Great Barrier Reef, Agincourt Reef, Far North Queensland. April 2021. Banks by Grantlee Kieza The strongest elements of this rich and detailed biography are those during the defining period of Banks' life and career: his voyage with James Cook's expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour from 1768 to 1771. I particularly enjoyed the section on their visit to far north Queensland (I happened to be visiting while reading the book). The tensions between the young Banks and Cook regarding the latter's brusque approach to the native peoples was enlightening and foretold both Cook's eventual fate and the subsequent treatment of Australia's original inhabitants. Much like Banks' life after returning to England, the book tends to drift with occasional flashes of colour. I was less interested in the internal politics of the Royal Society or Banks' love life than I was in the exploration of the new world. While Cooks' latter voyages, t...