''That Deadman Dance'' is the third novel by Western Australian author
Kim Scott
Kim Scott (born 18 February 1957) is an Australian novelist of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. He is a descendant of the Noongar people of Western Australia.
Biography
Scott was born in Perth in 1957 and is the eldest of four siblings with a ...
. It was first published in 2010 by Picador (Australia) and by Bloomsbury in the UK, US and Canada in 2012. It won the 2011 Regional
Commonwealth Writers' Prize
Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best ...
, the 2011
Miles Franklin Literary Award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–19 ...
, the 2011
ALS Gold Medal
The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (ALS Gold Medal) is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the ...
, the 2011
Kate Challis RAKA Award
The Kate Challis RAKA Award is an arts award worth , awarded annually by the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia to Indigenous Australian creative artists. It is awarded in a five-year cycle, each year in a different area of the arts: ...
, the 2011
Victorian Prize for Literature, the 2011
Victorian Premier's Literary Award
The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Government with the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry. As of 2013, it is reportedly Australia's richest literary p ...
, Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction and the 2012
NSW Premier's Literary Award Christina Stead Prize and Book of the Year.
Plot synopsis
''That Deadman Dance'' is set in the first decades of the 19th century in and around what is now
Albany, Western Australia
Albany ( ; nys, Kinjarling) is a port city in the Great Southern region in the Australian state of Western Australia, southeast of Perth, the state capital. The city centre is at the northern edge of Princess Royal Harbour, which is a ...
, an area known by some historians as 'the friendly frontier'. The book explores the early contact between the Aboriginal
Noongar people
The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the so ...
, European settlers and American
whalers.
The novel's hero is a young Noongar man named Bobby Wabalanginy. Clever, resourceful and eager to please, Bobby befriends the new arrivals, joining them hunting whales, tilling the land, exploring the hinterland and establishing the fledgling colony. But slowly – by design and by accident – things begin to change. Not everyone is happy with how the colony is developing. Stock mysteriously start to disappear; crops are destroyed; there are 'accidents' and injuries.
As the new arrivals impose ever stricter rules and regulations in order to keep the peace, Bobby Wabalanginy's Elders decide they must respond. A friend to everyone, Bobby is forced to take sides: he must choose between the old world and the new, his ancestors and his settler friends. Inexorably, he is drawn into a series of events that will forever change not just the colony but the future of Australia.
The novel was a vivid narrative seeking to recreate what an initial encounter with the white settlers would be like from both the perspective of the coloniser and the colonised. Mainly told through the eyes of a young aboriginal boy, It was able to reflect upon some of the main concerns with colonisation and the tragic story behind a magnificent culture.
Awards and nominations
*
Commonwealth Writers' Prize
Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best ...
Best Book, South-east Asia and the Pacific, 2011: winner
*
Miles Franklin Literary Award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–19 ...
, 2011: winner
*
ALS Gold Medal
The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (ALS Gold Medal) is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the ...
, 2011: winner
*
Kate Challis RAKA Award
The Kate Challis RAKA Award is an arts award worth , awarded annually by the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia to Indigenous Australian creative artists. It is awarded in a five-year cycle, each year in a different area of the arts: ...
, 2011: winner
*
Victorian Premier's Literary Award
The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Government with the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry. As of 2013, it is reportedly Australia's richest literary p ...
, Victorian Prize for Literature and Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, 2011: winner
*Indie Book Award, 2011: shortlisted
*
Prime Minister's Literary Awards
The Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards (PMLA) were announced at the end of 2007 by the incoming First Rudd ministry following the 2007 election. They are administered by the Minister for the Arts.[Western Australian Premier's Book Awards
The Western Australian Premier's Book Awards is an annual book award provided by the Government of Western Australia, and managed by the State Library of Western Australia.
History and format
Annual literary awards were inaugurated by the West ...]
, Premier's Prize and Fiction Book, 2011: winner
*
Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, Fiction and Premier's prizes, 2012: winner
*
NSW Premier's Literary Award, Christina Stead Prize and Book of the Year, 2012: winner
The Miles Franklin judges described ''That Deadman Dance'' as "a powerful and innovative fiction that shifts our sense of what an historical novel can achieve. Its language is shaped by the encounter of Noongar and Australian English, producing new writing and speech. It tells the story of the rapid destruction of Noongar people and their traditions. At the same time, there is the enchanting possibility of the birth of a new world in the strange song, dance, ceremony and language that are produced by these encounters of very different peoples."
References
{{Victorian Prize for Literature
2010 Australian novels
Miles Franklin Award-winning works
Novels set in Western Australia
Books about or based in Albany, Western Australia
ALS Gold Medal winning works
Noongar culture
Indigenous Australian literature
Australian historical novels
Novels set in the 19th century