Sometimes I like to choose a book for bookclub that I feel has been a bit overlooked. Next month I’m planning to give you a wild ride, but the book for August 2017 is something a bit quieter and a bit special: local YA author and playwright and generally wonderful person Jane Harrison’s lovely book, BECOMING KIRRALI LEWIS.
Set in the tumultuous era of civil rights activism in the 1960s and the changed landscape of the 1980s, BECOMING KIRRALI LEWIS is a coming of age story about Kirrali, a Koori girl who’s been ‘raised white’ in a loving adoptive family. But when she enters university to study for her law degree, her notions of identity are challenged, and she begins the unexpected quest for her birth family. It’s a story about race and identity and love, and Jane Harrison’s writing will knock your socks off.
Jane is a descendant of the Muruwari people of NSW. She is a well-known playwright – her play Stolen has been performed all over Australia, and in the UK, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and was the co-winner of the Kate Challis RAKA Award 2002. Both Stolen and her other work, Rainbow’s End, have been on the English syllabi. Her essays include My Journey through Stolen, the MJA Ross Ingram 2010 award-winning Healing our communities, healing ourselves, and Indig-curious; who can play Aboriginal roles? She has an MA in Playwriting from QUT – KIRRALI is her first YA novel, and it was highly commended in the Vic Premier’s Literary Awards, as well as winning the 2014 blak&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship in 2014.
I hope you enjoy BECOMING KIRRALI LEWIS – I’m looking forward to talking about it with you! You can order the book here through Boomerang Books, and use the ‘loveoz’ code to receive free shipping.
Chat again soon!
xxEllie