LITMIR.BIZ

'… a boy born long ago in 1938 who was named Balga or Black Boy. He had an Aboriginal mother and an African-American father who bequeathed to him the spiky mop of hair which gave him his name. So it is said. Now read on.' Balga Boy Jackson is the long awaited new novel of Mudrooroo. He returns to his roots to give us a vivid life story of an Australian Black Boy – naturally with a pun, Balga is the Australian grass tree called in Western Australia, the Black Boy. Mudrooroo, who hails from Cuballing in the West, takes us on Balga Boy's journey to Fitzroy and Kings Cross. The late fifties and early sixties comes alive through Balga's own Blues and musical journey, and he says: "This is how it was, for a lot of us." Old readers of Mudrooroo who enjoyed Wild Cat Falling , Dr. Wooreddy and the Master of the Ghost Dreaming series, will enjoy this book and new readers will begin to understand Australia from a black and blues perspective.

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The First National Black Playwrights Conference and Workshop held in Canberra in January 1987 was a hectic affair. More than one participant called on Mudrooroo to use the proceedings (in the sense of what was happening) and the stories going around in a book. Doin Wildcat was that book. It has been called his most Aboriginal work and it should be as it stems from that historical conference and what happened there transferred of course to – well – the world of Wildcat.<br /> <br />Wildcat, the prison graduate, drifting through life, making the most of the opportunities that come his way, relishing the pickings of the late 1980s… by the author of Wild Cat Falling.

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The fifth and final volume of poetry by the author of Wild Cat Falling was originally published in India in 2013. There are 45 poems from the Master of the Ghost Dreaming, as he reels and sways through his long held interest in Buddhism and the Blues. While still writing about rejuvenation and the great cycles of Life, there is a strong awareness of finality, of passing on, of Death. Always lyrical, this is a wonderful offering from the award-winning poet.

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From its initial appearance, Wild Cat Falling was recognised as a profoundly important work. Mudrooroo first published it under the name Colin Johnson. And when it was released by Angus &amp; Robertson in 1965, Aboriginals were not considered Australian citizens, did not have the right to vote, and no novel written by an Aboriginal Australian had made it to print.<br /> <br />In telling the story of a symbolically nameless young Aboriginal man, and of his re-entry into society after a period of incarceration, Mudrooroo offered insights into an Aboriginal's sense of isolation, his literal and metaphorical imprisonment, and his estrangement from his own people and culture. The young man belongs neither to the white society that shuns him nor to the Aboriginal fringe dwellers who inhabit the white society's periphery. While he can 'talk the talk' of the subversive white 'bodgies', they offer no more clue to his identity than do the university students he charms with his parodic existential angst.<br /> <br />This fiftieth anniversary edition of Mudrooroo's Wild Cat Falling, including an updated introduction and autobiography by Mudrooroo, highlights this writer's importance to Australian literature. Wild Cat Falling has been in print continuously since its initial publication in 1965. It is frequently read as a school and university text, and it has helped to establish Mudrooroo as a writer recognised widely throughout the world.

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The young Wooreddy recognised the omen immediately, accidentally stepping on it while bounding along the beach: something slimy, something eerily cold and not from the earth. <i>Since it had come from the sea, it was an evil omen.</i><br /><i>Soon after, many people died mysteriously, others disappeared without a trace, and once-friendly families became bitter enemies. The islanders muttered, 'It's the times', but Wooreddy alone knew more: the world was coming to an end.</i><br /> <br />In Mudrooroo's unforgettable novel, considered by many to be his masterpiece, the author evokes with fullest irony the bewilderment and frailty of the last native Tasmanians, as they come face to face with the clumsy but inexorable power of their white destroyers.<br /> <br /><i>A novel of real power and stature</i>. – Adelaide Advertiser<br /> <br /><i>In Dr Wooreddy, Mudrooroo has taken his previous themes of (Aboriginal) heritage and identity and melded them into one perception. This is an amazing book</i>. – Newcastle Herald<br /> <br /><i>Powerfully imaginative, unflinchingly honest, rich in imagery and alive with comic ironies</i>. – Australian Book Review<br /> <br /><i>Outstanding</i>. – Boston Herald

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Aboriginals believe they have lived in Australia since the Dreamtime, the beginning of all creation, and archaeological evidence shows the land has been inhabited for tens of thousands of years. Over this time, Aboriginal culture has grown a rich variety of mythologies in hundreds of different languages. Their unifying feature is a shared belief that the whole universe is alive, that we belong to the land and must care for it. This was the first book to collate and explain the many fascinating elements of Aboriginal culture: the song circles and stories, artefacts, landmarks, characters and customs.

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The Kwinkan is a satirical parable surrounding a mysterious narrator who is part-politician, part Queensland property developer, and the forces at work in the Asia-Pacific region. It deals with international corporatism, political ambitions in an age of decaying colonialism, the clashes of competing mythologies, and the play of the dark, atavistic powers which manifest themselves in sexual disease and violence. These forces act on the characters, sometimes to unite strange bedfellows and at other times to sever connections either at a personal or national level.<br /> <br />PRAISE FOR MUDROOROO'S PREVIOUS NOVELS <br />'[Wildcat Screaming is] full of insight into the nature of man inside and outside of institutions and the sources of strength into which people dip in order to maintain hope and to survive.' – Roberta Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald<br /> <br />'Master of the Ghost Dreaming is a real page-turner. The prose is lyrical, yet simple, the images rich and ironic… an exciting, moving and engaging novel.' – Sophie Masson, Australian Book Review

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'Well, I can dream can't I? Dream? – nightmares, more like it. All I have to do is dream, dream, dream, scream… I'm now walking through this posh suburb, walking? – more like slinking. Wildcat on the prowl. Naw, though maybe checking out the streets for a bust. Eyes dart this way, that way, all ways, focus, man, on the main chance. Take it and break it real good; but is there any chances left? Not with my luck!' Wildcat is out of prison, but not for long. In this sequel to Wild Cat Falling, Mudrooroo takes us inside the life of the urban Aboriginal. Set in the boom years of Perth bankers and entrepreneurs, we see the same wheeling and dealing from inside Fremantle prison. Wildcat has to survive, and understand the new order, set by the Chief Warder and an ex-Indian Army officer. Soon he too is part of their great creation, The Panopticon Prison Reform Society. A novel by one of Australia's most revolutionary stylists.

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Set during the Gold Rush days, The Promised Land concludes Mudrooroo's fantastical voyage through the history of Australia around the time of its colonisation by the British. This is satire at its most cutting, and entertaining.<br /> <br />Sir George Augustus returns to the Great South Land with his young wife, Lady Lucy, intending to establish a mission to educate and 'Christianise' the native people. When he hears that gold has been found on the land, his missionary zeal increases. Accompanied by the mysterious white woman, Amelia Fraser, and a troop of native police, he sets out on an expedition to the diggings. As Sir George journeys into what he hopes is a golden future, his past begins to creep up on him, and those he thought were dead return to confront him.<br /> <br />The final book in the Master of the Ghost Dreaming series.

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By the firelight, a mysterious storyteller weaves a captivating tale of sea journeys, vampire women, and Aboriginal Dreaming. Around the campfire the gold diggers listen and journey with George as he plunges underground to rescue his ship's captain from the horrific and mesmerising vampire woman.<br /> <br />Jangamuttuk, the Master of the Ghost Dreaming, sends his son, George, to rescue Wadawaka from the 'ghost' vampire woman who has taken him as her 'Dark Lord' and imprisoned him in her underground kingdom. Will George, in either his human form or as his Dreaming animal-self Dingo, be able to withstand Amelia's powers; will he survive the underground caverns; can he tear Wadawaka and himself from the violent but seductive power of the vampire woman? And who is the strange but familiar ghost woman accompanying the new colonial governor?<br /> <br />Underground is the 3rd in the Master of The Ghost Dreaming quartet, beautifully and insistently portrays the enduring reality of Aboriginal Dreaming in a fascinating story of initiation, maternal longing, and colonial violence.

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