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'A story of homecoming, this absorbing novel opens with a young, city-based lawyer setting out on her first visit to ancestral country. Candice arrives at "the place where the rivers meet", the camp of the Eualeyai where in 1918 her grandmother Garibooli was abducted. As Garibooli takes up the story of Candice's Aboriginal family, the twentieth century falls away.
Garibooli, renamed Elizabeth, is sent to work as a housemaid, but marriage soon offers escape from the terror of the master's night-time visits. Her displacement carries into the lives of her seven children - their stories witness to the impact of orphanage life and the consequences of having a dark skin in post-war Australia. Vividly rekindled, the lives of her family point the direction home for Candice.
Home is a ... novel from an author who understands both the capacity of language to suppress and the restorative potency of stories that bridge past and present.' (Source: Publisher's blurb)
Teaching Resources
Notes
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Dedication: For Lavinia Boney Dawson and Kris Faller
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Dyslexic edition.
- Sound recording.
- Large print.
- e-book.
Works about this Work
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Our Truths - Aboriginal Writers and the Stolen Generations
BlackWords : Our Truths - Aboriginal Writers and the Stolen Generations
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The BlackWords Essays 2015; (p. 4) The BlackWords Essays 2019;In this essay Heiss demonstrates that stories, poetry, songs, plays and memoirs are 'living' evidence of truths otherwise untold or appropriated (Source: Introduction)
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Pedagogical Approaches to Diversity in the English Classroom : A Case Study of Global Feminist Literature
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture , Winter vol. 13 no. 1 2013; (p. 149-157) 'Students can sometimes be resistant to discussing issues of diversity in the English classroom, making it a challenge for instructors to hold honest and enlightening exchanges about race, sexuality, gender, and other facets of human identity. This essay explores various pedagogical strategies the author has successfully employed when teaching texts that highlight diverse perspectives. She focuses specifically on global feminist literature by way of one primary example, the contemporary Australian Aboriginal novel Home by Larissa Behrendt, which highlights the 'stolen generations' of Aboriginal and mixed-descent children and the many repercussions of those atrocities on future generations. After providing a brief overview of the novel, she discusses the successful techniques she has utilized in the classroom to help students prepare for and critically analyze this text. These approaches include interrogating the term diversity itself, providing historical and cultural context to the various issues illuminated in the novel, viewing related visual discourses such as film, and crafting writing and discussion assignments for the students to complete both in and out of class. These pedagogical strategies could be useful in any English classroom that focuses on issues of diversity.' (Publisher's abstract)
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Irish and Australian Historical Fiction
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Exhuming Passions : The Pressure of the Past in Ireland and Australia 2012; (p. 187-206) 'In recent years, in both Australia and Ireland, prominent authors have offered fictional reconsiderations of periods crucial to national consciousness and definition. In Australia, for example, Kate Grenville's work has generated considerable debate about the use of history in fiction, and about the responsibility of the fiction writer to accurately or authentically represent historical events, persons and periods. The project of recovering history and thereby uncovering the nation's past sins can also be identified in other contemporary novels by authors such as Gail Jones and Larissa Behrendt. In Ireland, Roddy Doyle, Joseph O'Connor and Sebastian Barry have been at the forefront of this historical analysis and deployment...' (From author's introduction, 187)
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Aboriginal Women's Memories : An Attempt at Rewriting Official Australian History
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Partnership Id-Entities : Cultural and Literary Re-Insciption/s of the Feminine 2010; (p. 45-54) 'In 1997 the 'Bringing Them Home' report opened a new chapter in Australian history by bringing to light one of the most systematic and cruel colonial practices based on assimilation ideology and policy : the so-called Stolen Generation. The report on the two year National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families estimates that from 1911 to the end of the 1970s the shocking nomber of 100,000 children were removed from their families with the aim of 'civilizing' them by integrating them forcibly into European culture. To confirm the magnitude of the phenomenon, the Aboriginal writer, Anita Heiss once said: 'I haven't met one Indigenous Australian who hasn't been affected by the policies of protection that lead to what we commonly refer to as the Stolen Generations'.
Since the report was released, this deep and complex question has been many times represented in literature as well as in cinematographic fiction...'(p. 45)
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"Once Upon a Patriachy" : Cultural Translation in the Poetry of Romaine Moreton
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Partnership Id-Entities : Cultural and Literary Re-Insciption/s of the Feminine 2010; (p. 31-44)
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A Shining Light to Show the Way
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 1-2 May 2004; (p. 14)
— Review of Home 2004 single work novel -
Home is Where the Head Is
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 8 May 2004; (p. 2a)
— Review of Home 2004 single work novel -
They Stole My Gran
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 15-16 May 2004; (p. 14)
— Review of Home 2004 single work novel -
Home and Prose
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 25 May vol. 122 no. 6422 2004; (p. 60-61)
— Review of Ash Rain 2004 single work novel ; Names for Nothingness 2004 single work novel ; The Philosopher's Doll 2004 single work novel ; Bright Planet 2004 single work novel ; Home 2004 single work novel ; Vernon God Little : A 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death 2003 single work novel ; The White Earth 2004 single work novel ; The Last Ride 2004 single work novel -
[Review] Home
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Bookseller & Publisher , April vol. 83 no. 9 2004; (p. 44)
— Review of Home 2004 single work novel -
Finding Home Amid the Stolen Memories
2004
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 8 May 2004; (p. 3) -
Lariss Behrendt
Claire Scobie
(interviewer),
2004
single work
interview
— Appears in: Map Magazine , July no. 55 2004; (p. 50) -
Behrendt's First Novel is a Case of Going Home
2004
single work
column
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 22 September no. 335 2004; (p. 38) -
Law Stories and Life Stories : Aboriginal Women, the Law and Australian Society
2005
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , vol. 20 no. 47 2005; (p. 245-254) -
Introducing Larissa Behrendt
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: Newswrite : The NSW Writers' Centre Magazine , June no. 159 2006; (p. 5)
Awards
- 2005 winner Commonwealth Writers Prize — South East Asia and South Pacific Region — Best First Book
- 2004 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Prize for Indigenous Writing
- 2002 winner Queensland Literary Awards — Unpublished Indigenous Writer : David Unaipon Award
- 1918-1995