Dirrayawadha (Anita Heiss, S&S)

Dirrayawadha is a work of searing historical fiction set during the Wiradyuri wars in 1820s Bathurst and centring on a love story between a young Wiradyuri woman and an Irish convict. Miinaa and Dan’s relationship may seem an unlikely locus for a story about the violent power struggle between First Nations peoples and white settlers (‘white ghosts’), but this is a clever conceit on Heiss’s part because it works. Through her clear and unadorned prose, the past speaks directly to the present. Miinaa and Dan work for the Nugents, Irish settlers who have fled persecution in Ireland only to witness the English here persecuting First Nations peoples. The Nugents’ natural sympathies are challenged by the escalating tensions between the local Wiradyuri people and the colonial project of growing Bathurst, tensions that culminate in a war led by resistance warrior Windradyne, Miinaa’s brother and the book’s third point of view. Heiss, herself a Wiradyuri woman, states in the foreword that she sees this novel as part of truth-telling in Australia as per the Uluru Statement. Dirrayawadha successfully imparts historical truths within an accessible mass-market format while retaining many words in the Wiradyuri language. This novel will appeal to fans of conventional historical fiction about politically marginalised people along the lines of works by Shankari Chandran and Kate Grenville. It starts gently, yet by the end, you will feel the full force of the truths of Australia’s colonial history.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Melissa Mantle is a Sydney-based bookseller with a master's degree in literature. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Friday Unlocked reviews Reviews Think Australian top reviews