The aim of much recent writing on alleged frontier massacres appears to be the conjuring of as many murdered Aborigines as possible. With its errors, omissions and disconcerting semi-novelistic approach to the events and non-events at Forrest River, Professor Kate Auty’s book is another example of that movement. That it has been blessed with the imprimatur of a university press makes this sorry work all the more depressing
The Port of Olympia was in its infancy in the late 1920s when it hosted the Olympia Maru, a Japanese freighter named in honor of the city. The ship’s visit was considered a civic festival.
How can fiction contribute to the “truth” that the Uluru Statement asks us to tell? Allen and Unwin’s answer to that question is, in part
Tim Rowse concludes that Paul Daley’s new novel, inspired by true events in Arnhem Land, is fluent and skilfully paced – but doesn’t risk complicating the critical narrative of our colonial history.