Warfare across Australia as a result of colonial invasion is close to the heart of Dr Heiss, a member of the Wiradyuri nation of central NSW, also an academic, and author of 23 books ranging from children’s books to non-fiction and historical fiction. This latest work is fiction, part of truth-telling in Australia, based on what became known as the Bathurst War.
With titles like the Frontier Wars, the Homeland Wars, or even the Forgotten Wars, these events all happened in Australia, but Heiss claims the nation has chosen to forget them.
Taking the factual warrior leader, Windradyne, as a central character, she has woven a story of what life was like for Wiradyuri people and others on the land in the 1820s, peopling it with settlers, Windradyne’s family, and convicts.
One of the most interesting features of this story is the link Heiss sees between Irish-born convicts and settlers who had left their home country, either as political prisoners or voluntarily, because they opposed the British takeover of Ireland.
Those links between the Irish desire for autonomy and the Wiradyuri claims of sovereignty are highly apparent to at least one of the Irishmen living and working on the land.
The striking use of Wiradyuri language throughout the novel, whose title means ‘Rise Up’, means Heiss has included an extensive glossary of words and terms. It does not take many pages until the Wiradyuri words are so familiar it is not necessary to flip back to that glossary.
Heiss admits in a prologue that she has not included every incident in the trauma involved in the Bathurst War; but she makes it clear that Windradyne could not understand why the ‘white ghosts’, as his people called them, who had been welcomed, and shown where to find food, had then taken over the country.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Anita Heiss is an internationally published, award-winning author of 23 books; non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction and children’s novels. She is a proud member of the Wiradyuri Nation of central New South Wales, an Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the GO Foundation, and Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland. Anita is also the Publisher at Large of Bundyi, an imprint of Simon & Schuster cultivating First Nations talent, and a board member of the National Justice Project and Circa Contemporary Circus. As an artist in residence at La Boite Theatre, she adapted her novel Tiddas for the stage. It premiered at the 2022 Brisbane Festival and was produced by Belvoir St for the Sydney Festival in 2024.
Her novel, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, about the Great Flood of Gundagai, won the 2022 NSW Premier’s Indigenous Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for the 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize and the 2022 ABIA Awards. Anita’s first children’s picture book is Bidhi Galing (Big Rain), also about the Great Flood of Gundagai. Anita enjoys running, eating chocolate and being a creative disruptor.
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