Tanya Dalziel

So the structure of the novel is such that it's kind of told in little snapshots, and I think it's not trying to tell the whole story.

So in terms of Padagran's representation, she's presented, I think, as kind of curious and curious

looking for exchange between cultures.

And this is kind of squashed by MacArthur and his ambitions for the colony.

Well, I think this novel puts forward the idea that it can, whether we want to agree with that.

I think that's the basis on which this is working.

And, of course, The Secret River, Grenville's earlier novel, was a kind of lightning rod for debate around this

you know, not only the so-called culture wars of the 1990s, but also a somewhat acrimonious tussle between the purpose and claims of literature and history in that climate.

And I think too, if we can sort of see this text in relation to Grenville's earlier work, if we think about Joan Make's history, which was published in 1988, that's also a text that's kind of interested in thinking about putting women front and centre of nation-making and changing society.

So that book moves from history and splices the everyday present with the past.

And this novel too, I think, is kind of making a subtle case of fiction and history being on a sliding scale rather than being opposites.

You know, we could take issue, for example, with the idea within the text that Kate Grenville, the curator, sets up from the beginning that Elizabeth MacArthur is an unknown figure.

That's possibly not true.

That her letters were bland.

Actually, they were very long and very interesting in many instances.

But I think what this text is trying to do is open up space for us

other kinds of stories so that there's a wariness I think it enacts towards storytelling but it also suggests that maybe fiction is one of those spaces where stories that are not told can be told and whether that goes by the name of history or fiction maybe will strike readers in different kinds of ways but I think

That is the spirit of the book.

Right.

Okay.