Customer Reviews

Plains of Promise (UQP Black Australian writers series)

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A highly suggestive book that makes one dream of Australia and the plains of the Northern Territory, that makes the reader participate to the highly emotional experiences of the characters and that makes us question our conscience about how it could possibly happen something like that.
Plains of promise is the second book from the emergent Aboriginal writer Alexis Wright; highly praised by all critics when published, it was paralleled to the Hispano-American magic realism. Alexis Wright's book explores the past and present Aboriginal situation through a matrilineage , the history of mothers and daughters who take us across the second half of the past century. This saga uncovers the Aboriginal myths and legends but more truly their reality which is alive and still part of their every day life. So, it is not magic-realism what we find in the book, but an intricate symbolism that will lead us to the discovery of a different reality, that will allow us to take a glimpse to their world but that will not give us the key to fully understand it.
An intense book that will leave as many questions open as wounds bleeding. A lot of suffering but also a good charge of hope for the future generations; and it is for them that it hopes to trace a way towards reconciliation with the past and, by giving them back their origins, to provide them with a new and more stable identity.
Surely a masterpiece of Australian literature.