Kim Scott and Kate Grenville went to the library, and came away with a story
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Why did Kim Scott write *Benang: From the Heart*?
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Hello, I'm Claire Nichols and this is The Book Show where today I have two legends of Australian writing here with me. Kim Scott and Kate Grenville. The book show is where I bring you conversations with your favourite fiction authors, and I promise Kate Grenville will be here soon. But first, have you voted yet for your favourite ever Australian books? As you know, voting for our Top 100 Australian books countdown is happening right now. You can head to the Radio National website to tell us your favourite ever Australian reads. And here on the bookshow, I have been doing my best to help you. I've been going back through my own bookshelves to rediscover some great Australian novels and convincing. the authors of those novels to come back and talk to me about them.
So far I've brought you Tim Winton talking about Cloud Street, Helen Garner talking about Monkey Grip. You can find both of those conversations on ABC Listen if you haven't heard them already. Today it's Noongar writer Kim Scott and his Miles Franklin winner, Banung.
Kim Scott published Benung from the Heart in 1999. The book is narrated by Harley, the so-called firstborn successfully white man in the family line. He's descended from a long line of Noongar people on Western Australia's southern coast. And Harley investigates his family history, and we meet those who've come before. There's unforgettable characters like Sandy One and Sandy Two. Uncle Jack Chatterong, the brutal grandfather Ernest Scat, and the resilient matriarch Fanny Benung. Now this is historical fiction, but it's about much more than recreating a place and a time. Banang is an unflinching exploration of Aboriginal identity, and I've got to say it's just as powerful now as it was when it was first published.
Kim Scott, hello.
Hello. Thank you for your kind words there, Claire.
Take me back. Tell me about the man who wrote Venang.
Ah, all those years ago, yes, nearly three de hell it would be in the writing would be three decades ago. I was working at the Center for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University, working with mature age students, uh in a so called bridging course and also in a introducing a Aboriginal art visual arts course. So I was speaking and working a lot about issues of identity and uh colonization, shared history. And it was also a time of uh fraud, hoax and appropriation of Aboriginal identity. I w I won't go into details of that. There was well uh there was Madruru Nungar Ban Inquisition. into him and there was uh some of the durax, I think there was Eddie Barup presented, so on and so on. And uh I was researching family history.
And Partly coming out of the work I was doing, the way I was working with students. And I was reconnecting in a larger way with uh the Nungar community. In the research. Batty Library, the language of our shared history, I thought. And I was struck by the recurrence in local histories of The phrase the phrases last full blood Aborigine and the first white man born in each town. Each little locale. Which seemed to be it's the r the recurrence of it and the persistence of it seemed to be speaking of some need to draw a line between pre colonial Australia and today, which in itself was interesting to see. And then I discovered um A. O. Neville's extended writing.
So A. O. Neville, he was the so called chief protector of Aborigines in Western Australia for a very long period, like nineteen fifteen to nineteen forty. Yes.
A number of decades, that's right. And he after he retired he published a book espousing and outlining his philosophical position.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did Kim Scott write *Benang: From the Heart*?
0:00–6:46
2
How did A.O. Neville’s archive and photographs shape the narrative of *Benang*?
6:46–12:36
3
What does the recurring phrase ‘first successfully white man born’ tell us about identity in the novel?
12:36–18:32
4
How does Kim Scott de‑construct colonial language and the archive in his storytelling?
18:32–24:05
5
What sparked Kate Grenville to turn a school‑record archive into *The Country Schoolmaster*?
24:05–29:38
6
How did the 88 letters from Joseph Connor’s school years become the backbone of Grenville’s book?
29:38–34:53
7
Why does the truth about Aboriginal history remain contested and how do the authors address it?
34:53–40:34
8
What is the lasting significance of the closing line ‘We are still here, Benang’?
40:34–46:24
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Book Show
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