AUSTRALIANA FICTION  ABORIGINAL INDIGENOUS

Winner of the 2020 Dorothy Hewett Award for an unpublished manuscript.

 Brigid Devlin, a young Aboriginal woman, and her twin daughters navigate a troubled nation of First Peoples, settlers and refugees – all determined to shape a future on stolen land. Leaving the sanctuary of her family’s apple orchard, Brigid sets off with no destination and a willy wagtail for company. As she moves through an everchanging landscape, Brigid unravels family secrets to recover what she’d lost – by facing the past, she finally accepts herself. Her twin daughters continue her journey with their own search for self-acceptance, truth and justice. This evocative family saga celebrates the strength and resilience of First Nation women, while touching on deeply traumatic aspects of Australian history. Threads of magic realism shimmer throughout the story, offering a deeper understanding of reality and challenging the reader to imagine a kinder, more just, more humane world. This writing celebrates the agency of Indigenous women to traverse ever-present landscapes of colonisation and intergenerational trauma. Country has an omniscient presence in the story lines, guiding the women across vivid desert and coastal landscapes. This book recognises both the open wounds of living histories of colonisation and the healing power of belonging to Country.

• 344 pages ; 21 cm #131223
• Women, Aboriginal Australian — Fiction
• Mothers and daughters — Australia — Fiction
• Family secrets — Australia — Fiction
• Belonging (Social psychology) — Australia — Fiction
• Twin sisters — Fiction
• Intergenerational relations — Australia — Fiction
• Australian fiction
• Australia — Colonization — History — Fiction
• Australia — Social life and customs — Fiction
• Australian