The Prize for Indigenous Writing: Shortlist 2004

Judges

Tony Birch (Convenor), Meme McDonald and Gaye Sculthorpe

The category of Indigenous Writing attracted a range of literature in the genres of fiction, poetry, non-fiction and children’s writing that indicate the extent of both Indigenous experience in Australia and a maturity in approach to subject matter. The quality of the writing was such that it was difficult to finalise a short lis.

Shortlist

Home
Larissa Behrendt
University of Queensland Press
Home reflects the shifting social and demographic status of Indigenous communities across Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. It highlights the fact that an Indigenous understanding and attachment to place and culture is both grounded and tenuous. ‘Returning home’ is central to the psychology of Indigenous identity, understood through the journey of Candice, who, on returning ‘home’ also returns to the history of marginalisation and discrimination experienced by Indigenous communities in postwar Australian society. This illustrates the extent to which the home of Indigenous people has been threatened by the forces of colonialism and suffering and displacement enacted in the name of ‘assimilation’.

Her Sister’s Eye
Vivienne Cleven
University of Queensland Press
Her Sister’s Eye asks us to ‘always remember where you’re from’, which provides a sense of place familiar to indigenous communities across Australia. Vivienne Cleven explores this theme poignantly through the families and individual characters who map the landscape of the Queensland town of Mundra; through the relationships within and between families and the wider communities; through the intricacies of mannered behaviour and secrets. It is a novel that provides us with an insight into growing up and living ‘black’ in Australia.

Dorothy’s Skin
Dennis McDermott
Five Islands Press
Dorothy’s Skin is a work of poetry that skilfully combines a narrative a formal style that is both immediately accessible while providing deeper resonances to be savoured in time. The subject matter is both broad ranging and acutely intimate. It deals with issues of identity, history and landscape in Australia with a poetic sensibility that is able to produce visual and emotional sketches that contain all the complexities and at times contradictions contained in such issues. After reading Dennis McDermott we should come to understand Indigenous identity in particular as a complex weave of psychology, culture and kinship.