I've almost finished this book and can highly recommend it. Be warned though, you may want to re-locate to the Top End after you've read it! Rothwell captures the essence of the land and the people of the Northern Territory, and shows why it is indeed like another country and why it has such drawing power for some. There's a chapter there called "The Call of the Yidaki"... I get a couple of lines in there and is dubiously described as "Djalu's anthropologist biographer". There's also Frank Thill, Jeremy Cloake, Dhangal and of course Djalu gets centre stage!
A bit of a cut and paste of a book review:
Quote:
‘One of the images of Northern and Central Australia that most often comes to me is … that of mosaic, a dance of broken, gleaming fragments: the landscape that varies in its unending, subtle rhythms: the human presences within the country that glint and catch the eye like metallic rooftops shining in the late sun.’ – Nicolas Rothwell, Another Country
For several years now, Nicolas Rothwell has travelled the length and breadth of Northern and Central Australia. Another Country collects sketches and portraits written over this time — ‘a time of great transformations’ — and combines them into a book that reveals another Australia.
This book tells the story of desert journeys and encounters with mystics and artists, explorers and healers. It gathers together groundbreaking pieces on Aboriginal art and society, and on Darwin and the lure of the North.
This fascinating book also includes the work that won him the 2006 Walkley Award for coverage of Indigenous Affairs. There is both artful storytelling and fearless and reliable reporting — on what life is like in troubled Aboriginal communities and on what is wrong with the Aboriginal art market.
Rothwell takes us to an Australia that few know well. Another Country is a portrait of people and places. It is also a literary achievement — a mesmerising, many-faceted journey into the landscape, and beyond.
Author details: Nicolas Rothwell is the author of the award-winning Wings of the Kite-Hawk and the novel Heaven and Earth. He is the northern correspondent for The Australian. In 2006, he won the Walkley Award for coverage of Indigenous Affairs.
Guan
