AWW22 Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: River of Dreams - Anita Heiss

Chaired by Jared Thomas.


Hugely popular and award-winning author Anita Heiss’s new novel
opens with a fictionalised account of 1852’s Gundagai floods,
still Australia’s deadliest. But for the heroic efforts of
Wiradyuri men Yarri and Jacky Jacky, the toll would have been
much higher. Yarri’s daughter Wagadhaany survives the flood only
to become an indentured slave to the settlers her father rescued.
A nuanced examination of Black and White relations, a celebration
of family and Country, and a literary celebration of the
Wiradyuri language, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray is Anita’s finest
book yet.