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Nate D's Reviews > Babaru
Babaru
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A gem of aboriginal Australia from the 50Watts collections. Colonial devastation mixes with the mythic hope that existence is not confined to the oppressor's reality. Elegant and convincing, even when reincarnated narratorial viewpoints jump to dogs, dingos, cockatiels. Occasionally this openness towards interpretation of reality can drift out into the truly unexpected with an off-handed experimentation that makes these much more than their folkloric appearance.
Blurbed by no less than Amiri Baraka, how has this become so unread and unremembered as to have no reviews here?
(And the answer, from Sean, turns out to be that behind the pseudonoym B. Wongar was no actual aboriginal writer but a Serbian-Australian transplant. He remains a strong anti-colonial advocate, needed in Australia from any viewpoint, but it's too bad that he had to obscure his identity and so muddle the conversation around that message to get it out.)
Blurbed by no less than Amiri Baraka, how has this become so unread and unremembered as to have no reviews here?
(And the answer, from Sean, turns out to be that behind the pseudonoym B. Wongar was no actual aboriginal writer but a Serbian-Australian transplant. He remains a strong anti-colonial advocate, needed in Australia from any viewpoint, but it's too bad that he had to obscure his identity and so muddle the conversation around that message to get it out.)
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Reading Progress
June 16, 2019
–
Started Reading
June 20, 2019
– Shelved
June 20, 2019
– Shelved as:
australia
June 25, 2019
– Shelved as:
read-in-2019
June 25, 2019
– Shelved as:
previously-unreviewed
June 25, 2019
–
Finished Reading
June 26, 2019
– Shelved as:
80s
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Jun 26, 2019 11:02AM
Perhaps in part because of by a literary mimesis scholar that Wongar faked his Aboriginality?
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AH! The slightest bit of research could have revealed this to me. He's now well known to have been a white Serbian transplant in Australia. I should have known to investigate, there's something perhaps too calculated about the style. Still, I'll take anti-colonialist laments where I can find them.
This is interesting. It's obviously extremely problematic that a non aboriginal shot to fame as the best known aboriginal writer(!) but some of the backlash feels like it may be an attempt to suppress one of the few people speaking out against Australia's treatment of the aboriginals. Other of his work has clearly been shut down for political reasons, and he even had a manuscript seized:"The collection contained several thousand black-and-white photographs portraying the impact of uranium mining and the British nuclear testing on tribal Aborigines. In 1974 Wongar was asked to send some of the Totem and Ore photographs for an exhibition in the Parliament House Library in Canberra. The exhibition was banned by order of the Australian parliament only a few hours after the official opening."
This was three years BEFORE the publication of his first book of aboriginal stories.
It would be interesting to hear the perspectives of the Aboriginal people he associated with, rather than just that of the outraged white Australians. There's always that ambiguity when white oppressors and/or their descendants start attacking another white person for allegedly co-opting indigenous people's stories, without first checking in with the indigenous folks to see what they think.is pretty interesting.
Thanks for that, it is.
The author seems to be a lot less of a mess than Boyden or that white dude who stole a Chinese woman's name at least. Having an 'ethnic' sounding pen name isn't as bad as faking one's blood quantum.
True. Reading this blindly as a book of first person aboriginal narratives, the lack of context in any of the copy feels a bit deceptive, yet it doesn't seem like Wongar tried to represent himself as having any aboriginal identity outside of the stories, and also published a factual autobiography of how he came to the material. He seems to have adopted the aboriginal viewpoint mainly to point out the ongoing abuses of white colonizers, which was certainly needed.
Nate D wrote: "True. Reading this blindly as a book of first person aboriginal narratives, the lack of context in any of the copy feels a bit deceptive, yet it doesn't seem like Wongar tried to represent himself ..."It sounds like it could be comparable to Smith's 'Strange Fruit' in terms of one of the very rare instances where white people know what they're doing enough to justify their work.
I was also reminded of Jan Yoors, who ran off and lived with a Romani group (an action which his parents actually endorsed), then later wrote a couple of books about his experiences.(Btw, hi Aubrey- not sure if you remember me but we were friends here a long time ago on my old account. Nice to run into you again!)
Hey Sean. I did some severe purging of my friends list a while back and have only recently started reconnecting, so feel to send me a friend req if you're in the mood for it.
