 | Larissa Behrendt's first novel, Home, won the Best First Novel award for the South East Asia and South Pacific Region of the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize. That novel told the fictionalised story of her father's search for his Aboriginal identity. Her latest novel, Legacy, is to be launched in Brisbane on November 20th and leading up to that event she spoke to Kathleen Noonan of the "Courier-Mail": |
In Legacy she wanted to tell the story of the group of passionate young men and women who in 1972 established the Australian Tent Embassy in front of Parliament House.The story centres on the relationships of fathers and daughters but strong indigenous women stalk the pages.
"I guess I've seen so many strong women," she says.
"If ever I hear white people say that Aboriginal culture oppresses women, I think: 'You ever been to a Redfern meeting?'
"I know there is violence against women in some households, but I grew up with a very different point of view.
"At most indigenous meetings, it is like this. The women sit back and let the men go on and on, doing all the grandstanding. Then the women go: 'Are ya done? Are ya finished? Right, this is what we're gunna do'."
