AustLit

'I was with friends, high up on a range looking west and down through a long and beautiful valley just south of Alice Springs, mountains in the far distance gauzy in the late light. A few cars came and went, windows lit up in scattered houses. It was warm but we made a small fire for company. We'd brought food and wine, music and reading. The best of times, yet as the sun sank, I felt a deep melancholy. It can come at that hour, quietly, but that evening, in that place, it rushed in like a wave. I wondered why, and as I did my mind's eye lifted like a bird over the range, across a narrow valley and into the next, to the military base known as Pine Gap. You can see its white domes against the red earth, like a cluster of giant golf balls or spider eggs, when you fly into Alice Springs. From elsewhere, it is out of sight - and out of mind for most of us most of the time, here in Alice as in the rest of the country. But it has moved to the forefront for me, ever since I followed the 2017 Supreme Court trials of six peace activists who dared to trespass into this prohibited domain.' (Publication abstract)

'It is as though a mouth in the rockface has been prised open and stomach contents disgorged, teeth too. This is the deepest of the scars left by the quarrying of stone from the range rising along the southern side of Ilparpa Valley. The disgorgement settles on a flattened turnaround for trucks and machinery, high above the valley; a second smaller turnaround has been carved out below. The road leading up to it has eroded into a deep gully; just a goat track at the side holds on, buttressed by buffel grass and rock. Up this track we go, for a picnic of promise.' (Introduction)

'Alice Springs Town centre is surrounded by three prominent hills, each of them sacred to Central Arrernte people, the traditional owners of the area known as Mparntwe. All three hills have a place in this story. If you have visited Alice Springs, you have likely climbed or driven to the top of Atnelkentyarliweke (alternatively Untyeyetwelye) – known in English as Anzac Hill for its war memorial. From there you can see in every direction, across the rooftops of the town to the valleys and ranges beyond. The view is especially beautiful to the west, into the broad Larapinta Valley and up to the ranges that rise towards a peak known as Alhekulyele (Mount Gillen in English). It too is sacred, embodying the ancestral wild dog. It too has a place in this story about cultural recognition, aspired to but frequently foundering on ignorance and short-sightedness.' (Introduction)

'In Alice Springs, the trials of young Warlpiri men reveal the threads of anarchic Warlpiri resistance to Australian law...'