Author Kim Scott.
Will Russell
IT is easy to see why Kim Scott has won the coveted Miles Franklin Literary Award not once but twice.
Camera IconAuthor Kim Scott. Will Russell IT is easy to see why Kim Scott has won the coveted Miles Franklin Literary Award not once but twice. Credit: Supplied/Will Russell

Benang: Fremantle Press to offer Miles Franklin Literary Award winning book

Jessica NicoFremantle Gazette

Judges described his book That Deadman Dance, which took out the 2011 award, as “a powerful and innovative fiction that shifts our senses of what a historical novel can achieve”.

But it was his 2000 award-winning book |Benang that first captured the hearts of many and thrust the author into the annals of Australian greats.

Benang tells the story of Harley, a man of |Nyoongar ancestry who is trying to reconcile the history of his country, his family and himself.

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First published in 1999, the book has been |re-released in a beautiful new edition as part of Fremantle Press’s Treasures series, a celebration of their more than 40 years of publishing.

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Inspired by A.O. Neville’s Australia’s Coloured Minority: It’s Place in the Community, Scott said it was very important for him to tell Harley’s story.

“Perhaps because I identified with many of the Aboriginal people who have not been given a voice and would wish to tell a very different story – to fill the silence that resides there,” he said.

“And I wanted to tentatively map a path of |recovery from some of the damage of our shared history – the rationalisation of colonisation, the deaths and loss, the reductionist discourses about identity.”

Scott said he felt honoured about the book joining the Treasures series.

Benang is available from www.fremantle press.com.au.