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image of person or book cover 4235538972912765439.jpg
Cover image courtesy the publisher.
y separately published work icon Benang : From the Heart single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1999... 1999 Benang : From the Heart
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Oceanic in its rhythms and understanding, brilliant in its use of language and image, moving in its largeness of spirit, compelling in its narrative scope and style, Benang is a novel of celebration and lament, of beginning and return, of obliteration and recovery, of silencing and of powerful utterance. Both tentative and daring, it speaks to the present and a possible future through stories, dreams, rhythms, songs, images and documents mobilised from the incompletely acknowledged and still dynamic past.' (Publisher's website)

Exhibitions

6939401
18160522
18005706
18388396
18387981

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Fremantle, Fremantle area, South West Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: Fremantle Press , 1999 .
      image of person or book cover 4235538972912765439.jpg
      Cover image courtesy the publisher.
      Extent: 500p.
      Description: illus., port.
      Reprinted: 2005 , 2009 , 2002 , 2001
      ISBN: 9781863682404 (pbk), 1863682406 (pbk)
    • New Delhi,
      c
      India,
      c
      South Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
      :
      Penguin Books India ,
      2003 .
      image of person or book cover 124065660128083717.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 502p.
      ISBN: 0143029843
    • North Fremantle, Fremantle area, South West Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: Fremantle Press , 2017 .
      image of person or book cover 5808940828954044135.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 500p.
      Edition info: 2nd edition
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 27th February 2017
      ISBN: 9781925164442
      Series: y separately published work icon Treasures Series Fremantle Press Treasures Fremantle : Fremantle Press , 2016 9260103 2016 series - publisher prose 'To celebrate over forty years of publishing, Fremantle Press presents the Treasures series. These special editions of much-loved Australian stories will be a treasure for those who know them and a treat for new readers.' (Source: Publisher's website)
Language: French
Notes:
Titled As: Benang /​ Kim Scott ; Roman Traduit de L'anglais (Australie) par Pierre Girard.
Notes:
Alternative Titled: Benang. French.
    • Arles,
      c
      France,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Actes Sud ,
      2002 .
      image of person or book cover 730025286398202789.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 471p.
      ISBN: 2742738134

Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Large print.

Works about this Work

form y separately published work icon Kim Scott Lecture Edith Cowan University, Kurongkurl Katitjin School of Indigenous Australian Studies , Perth : Edith Cowan University, Kurongkurl Katitjin School of Indigenous Australian Studies , 2001 8612083 single work film/TV criticism

Kim discusses some of the processes that he used to research, draft and edit Benang.

Fever in the Archive Anna Haebich , single work criticism
— Appears in: Humanities Australia , no. 5 2014; (p. 23-35)

Anna Haebich investigates how the West Australian Department of Indigenous Affairs archives (1898-1972) have been utilised by Indigenous writers/researchers.

Sea, Salt, Sand : The Billowing of Benang in Kim Scott’s Country Samuel J. Cox , 2021 single work essay
— Appears in: Saltbush Review , no. 1 2021;
Making and Unmaking : The Project of the Colonial Nation-state and the Counter-discursive Strategy of Ethnonation in Kim Scott’s Benang Arindam Das , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Postcolonial Writing , vol. 56 no. 1 2020; (p. 43-56)

'Kim Scott’s 1999 novel Benang has often been read in terms of the anxieties raised by Australia’s Stolen Generation Report. However, this article argues that the novel is not a direct attempt to lay bare white Australia’s neurosis. Rather, the novel aims to interrogate the colonial discourse that formed the basis of the exploitative, white, monologic, modern nation. Benang also deals with the strategic cultural resistance and negotiating manoeuvrings of the Nyoongars seeking to establish their distinct identity and envision an “ethnonation” within a modern nation. Benang thus examines how simultaneous and contrary discourses of nation formation, one modern and the other ethnic, one hegemonic and the other performative, simultaneously make and unmake Australia. The representation of these two contesting nations in Benang is assessed here with reference to modern theories of nation and nationalism.' (Publication abstract)

What I’m Reading Jenny Sinclair , 2018 single work column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2018;
"Benang : From the Heart" Gordon Briscoe , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: Aboriginal History , vol. 21 no. 1997; (p. 228-240)

— Review of Benang : From the Heart Kim Scott , 1999 single work novel
The Pain of Finding One's Voice Jennifer Moran , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 20 March 1999; (p. 24)

— Review of Benang : From the Heart Kim Scott , 1999 single work novel
Colour My World : Fighting Free from the Virtual Prison of Race Gerry Turcotte , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 19 June 1999; (p. 9)

— Review of Benang : From the Heart Kim Scott , 1999 single work novel
Nyoongar Man John Donnelly , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 211 1999; (p. 29-30)

— Review of Benang : From the Heart Kim Scott , 1999 single work novel
New Indigenous Fiction Anita Heiss , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: Southerly , Winter vol. 59 no. 2 1999; (p. 191-196)

— Review of Benang : From the Heart Kim Scott , 1999 single work novel ; Black Angels, Red Blood Steven McCarthy , 1998 single work novel
Making Strange Men : Resistance and Reconciliation in Kim Scott's Benang Lisa Slater , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Resistance and Reconciliation : Writing in the Commonwealth 2003; (p. 358-370)
Shouting Back : Kathryn Trees Talks to Kim Scott about His Writing Kathryn Trees (interviewer), 1995 single work interview
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , August/September vol. 10 no. 1 1995; (p. 20-21)
'The First White Man Born' : Miscegenation and Identity in Kim Scott's Benang Tony Birch , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Imagining Australia : Literature and Culture in the New New World 2004; (p. 137-157)
Elder Tells Her People's Story Jodi Hoffmann , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 10 August no. 357 2005; (p. 27)
Kim Scott's Benang : Monstrous (Textual) Bodies Lisa Slater , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 65 no. 1 2005; (p. 63-73)
Slater contends that 'Throughout Benang, Scott suggests that it is the body's openness to the environment that unsettled the colonisers and made them determine that to establish and maintain sovereignty it was necessary to make a white nation.'
Last amended 13 Jul 2021 10:39:47
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