Annie —
A Piece of Red Cloth by Leonie Norrington, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djawundil Maymuru and Djawa Burarrwanga
The best fiction allows the reader to enter times, cultures and places otherwise inaccessible. Children’s fiction writer Leonie Norrington was commissioned by her adoptive mother, Yolŋu woman Clare Bush, to share this piece of pre-colonial history—a story passed down through generations of Yolŋu oral tradition—with a wider audience. Norrington and cultural custodians and collaborators Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djawundil Maymuru and Djawa Burarrwanga have crafted a rich and transportive novel in the vein of Hannah Kent or Tara June Winch.
Before the white settlement of this country, the Yolŋu conducted trade with overseas neighbours, including the Macassans, who were under Dutch rule in the 1600s. In the novel, Batjani’s granddaughter, Garritji, is promised to Djapalitjarri once she has undergone her puberty ceremonies. But last season’s trade with the Foreigners brought freely flowing arrack (alcohol) that has caused division within the Yolŋu and created fear for their young women. Batjani suspects that Garritji is under threat and will do whatever she can to protect her.
Pre-colonial northern Australia is conjured here in exquisite detail, the landscape woven into every fibre of this novel. Layers of spiritual and quotidian life sit atop each other as we see hunting, foraging, cooking, managing relationships and creating ceremony through Yolŋu eyes. The novel captures the resilience, dignity and power of the Yolŋu people as they face foreign vices such as arrack and opium and the far greater threat of ideological greed embodied by the Barbarians, who now accompany the Foreigners. Capitalism is wielded as a cudgel, set to destroy this carefully managed equilibrium, but the Yolŋu’s strength is not to be underestimated.
Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell
I started this novel with very little knowledge of what it might contain, which is sometimes the best way to discover a book that may have repelled you should you have known more going in. Nesting is the debut novel from acclaimed Irish short story writer Roisin O’Donnell, and her ability to quickly conjure a scene of immense emotional depth is truly evident in this taut, powerful book.
Ciara’s life has shrunk enormously since she moved to Ireland with her now-husband Ryan. Their two girls, three and four, are much loved, but Ciara is living on the knife-edge of Ryan’s mood swings, battered into submission by his angry words and twisted logic. One afternoon, almost on impulse, she packs the car and takes the girls out of their toxic home environment, but without any kind of plan or destination in mind. Over the following year, they fall into the cracks of Ireland’s social housing scheme, but also meet people that bear them up towards a new kind of life, one not lived in fear. I listened to this one and highly recommend the audio version — the narrator really conjures the Irish setting and during moments of great tension I simply could not stop listening!
Alex —
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadette Evaristo
This outstanding novel has no regular timeline, and there is virtually no punctuation. Each chapter contains a portrait of three separate women. But British-Nigerian author and academic, Bernadine Evaristo, is an accomplished writer and breaks the rules to great effect.
Girl, woman, other. There is almost more punctuation on the cover than between the pages. Twelve characters, twelve distinct voices. All female. All women of colour. All dealing with some form of oppression.
Evaristo writes with empathy and humour of grief, passion, and despair, success and failure, good relationships and bad ones. For this unique book, Evaristo won the Booker prize in 2019. In it, Evaristo explores deep themes of feminism, gender identity, colonisation and what it truly means to feel other; not simply ‘other’ in terms of sexuality but of colour and class – and without a cliche in sight.
And if you have enjoyed this one, she has at least ten more to choose from.