image of person or book cover 6089587219177889868.jpg
Cover image courtesy of publisher.
y separately published work icon The White Girl single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2019... 2019 The White Girl
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Odette Brown has lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town. After her daughter disappeared and left her with her granddaughter Sissy to raise on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing fair-skinned Aboriginal children from their families. When a new policeman arrives in town, determined to enforce the law, Odette must risk everything to save Sissy and protect everything she loves.

'In The White Girl, Miles-Franklin-shortlisted author Tony Birch shines a spotlight on the 1960s and the devastating government policy of taking Indigenous children from their families.'  (Publication summary)

Exhibitions

18160515
18005706

Notes

  • Dedication: For Archie James (Born 4 August 2018)

    Only women know

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • St Lucia, Indooroopilly - St Lucia area, Brisbane - North West, Brisbane, Queensland,: University of Queensland Press , 2019 .
      image of person or book cover 6089587219177889868.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 265p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 3 June 2019.

      ISBN: 9780702260384 (pbk), 0702262056 (ebook), 9780702262050 (ebook), 070226038X (pbk)
    • c
      Canada,
      c
      Americas,
      :
      HarperVia ,
      2022 .
      image of person or book cover 8895328740765783143.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 272p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 15 March 2022.
      ISBN: 9780063213524, 0063213524

Other Formats

Works about this Work

Recentring Water : Thinking with the Chain of Ponds Mandy Treagus , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 25 May vol. 39 no. 1 2024;

'What might thinking with specific waters, and particular watery forms, bring to our understandings of how literature comes to mean? Taking cues from recent work in both the Blue Humanities – inspired by Pacific scholars – and the posthumanities, this article considers examples of recent writing in order to explore what is revealed when focus shifts to the aqueous. What ‘transversal alliances’ (Braidotti) and concomitant limitations are highlighted in writings and readings that take account of water? Thinking with a peculiarly Australian form of fluvial geomorphology – the chain of ponds – I consider four recent texts: John Kinsella’s 'Cellnight'; Natalie Harkin’s ‘Cultural Precinct’; Tony Birch’s The White Girl, and Christos Tsiolkas’s . Thinking with the chain of ponds reveals aspects of ‘hydrocolonialisms’ (Hofmeyr) and immersive ontologies. While all waters are revealed to be operating within the multiple restrictions of the nation state together with anthropogenic climate emergency, a focus on waters reveals possibilities of renewal as well as human and more-than-human connections. Taking this beyond the island continent to trans-Pacific links, I also consider the ways such connections are joyfully celebrated in Lisa Reihana’s indigifuturist video work Groundloop.'  (Publication abstract)

What I’m Reading Sofie Laguna , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2020;
Australia in Three Books Winnie Dunn , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , June vol. 79 no. 2 2020; (p. 14-17)

— Review of Always Another Country : A Memoir of Exile and Home Sisonke Msimang , 2018 single work autobiography ; The White Girl Tony Birch , 2019 single work novel
Miles Franklin Literary Award 2020 Shortlist Reading Guide Kate Evans , Sarah L'Estrange , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , July 2020;

'Stories of trauma — personal, communal and national — dominate the Miles Franklin Award, Australia's most prestigious literary prize, in its 63rd year.'

Tony Birch Tackles Race and Gender in New Book Alister McKeich , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 23 October no. 712 2019; (p. 21)
'For a book written by an Aboriginal man about Aboriginal people, the title The White Girl might come as a surprise.' (Introduction)
Books Roundup Ellen Cregan , Samantha van Zweden , Jackie Tang , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , July 2019;

— Review of A Constant Hum Alice Bishop , 2019 selected work short story ; The White Girl Tony Birch , 2019 single work novel
And Still the Birds Sing Karen Wyld , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 78 no. 2 2019; (p. 188-191)

— Review of The White Girl Tony Birch , 2019 single work novel ; Terra Nullius Claire G. Coleman , 2017 single work novel ; Catching Teller Crow Ambelin Kwaymullina , Ezekiel Kwaymullina , 2018 single work novel ; Too Much Lip Melissa Lucashenko , 2018 single work novel

'As some recently published works have shown, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytellers are continuing to embrace fiction-writing as a vessel for speaking truth to power. Constantly branching out into new genres—experimenting, fusing, transforming—there’s a noticeable increase in First Peoples speculative fiction being published in Australia.

With each line across the page, the colonial grip on the continent loosens. Fingers unclasp, story by story. Not all of these stories are from deep time—some are reimagined or even newly born—but they all carry power. Story-trails weave across paper and screen towards a common destination: truth-telling.'  (Introduction)

'A Piece of Scrub like Deane : Tony Birch's Resonant New Novel Sandra R. Phillips , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 413 2019; (p. 50-51)

— Review of The White Girl Tony Birch , 2019 single work novel
'If the number of reviews and interviews are indicators of a new book’s impact, Tony Birch’s novel The White Girl has landed like a B-format sized asteroid. Birch’s publisher estimates a substantial number of reviews and other features since publication. I’ve consulted none of them. Usually I can’t help myself from immersing myself in any and all artefacts of literary reception. With The White Girl I wanted to stay with the work, stay with Odette Brown and with Sissy, stay on the fringes of the fictional town called Deane, stay on that train to the big smoke – stay with The White Girl and reflect on where it took me.' (Introduction)
[Review] The White Girl Helen Elliott , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Monthly , August no. 158 2019; (p. 64)

— Review of The White Girl Tony Birch , 2019 single work novel
'One hundred and twenty-seven people. That was the census count of “the good white settlers” in the town where Odette Brown lives. Odette was not counted. None of her people were counted. They exist as shadows in a white world.' (Introduction)
Black and White Testament to Era Geordie Williamson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 18 May 2019; (p. 18)

— Review of The White Girl Tony Birch , 2019 single work novel

'Torpid beneath an inevitable sun, its dray-wide streets a study in shadow and glare, the country town of Deane — primary setting of Tony Birch’s new novel The White Girl, his fourth in a dozen years — is vividly rendered for a place that does not really exist. This is probably ­because some version of it has sprung up in so many parts of this country that only a generic instance is big enough to contain them all.'(Introduction)

Tony Birch on The White Girl : ‘No Aboriginal Person I Know Is Intact’ Paul Daley (interviewer), 2019 single work interview
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 7 June 2019;

'Birch’s new novel is an allegory of good, evil and the legacy of Australia’s colonial past – with strong black women at its core.'

y separately published work icon Tony Birch : On 'The White Girl' Astrid Edwards (interviewer), 2019 16811431 2019 single work interview podcast

'Tony Birch has appeared on The Garret before, and in this episode we are going to do something a little different. Our host Astrid Edwards had the honour of reading The White Girl (2019) before publication, and this interview represents Tony's first in-depth public discussion of the work.

'Tony is an acclaimed writer. His short story collection Common People (2017) was shortlisted for both the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and the Indigenous Writers Prize in the 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Ghost River (2015) won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing and was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Blood (2011) was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

'Tony is a frequent contributor to ABC local and national radio. He taught creative writing at Melbourne University for many years and was the inaugural Bruce McGuinness Research Fellow within the Moondani Balluk Centre at Victoria University.'

Source: Garret website.

Tony Birch : The White Girl Khalid Warsame , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 22-28 June 2019;

'In critical appraisals of Tony Birch’s fiction, certain adjectives appear again and again. Of the prose: “spare”, “concise”, “uncluttered”; the characters “vivid” and rendered with “compassion”. Perhaps it is true that good novels, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are all alike, yet it could just as easily be true that critics, by and large, tend to repeat themselves. Or perhaps, as I suspect, there’s an element to Birch’s writing that makes him both readable and difficult to define.'  (Introduction)

Shelf Reflection: Alice Bishop Alice Bishop , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , July 2019;
[Review] ‘The White Girl’ Helen Elliott , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Monthly , October no. 160 2019; (p. 58)
'One hundred and twenty-seven people. That was the census count of “the good white settlers” in the town where Odette Brown lives. Odette was not counted. None of her people were counted. They exist as shadows in a white world.' (Introduction)
Last amended 13 Jan 2022 08:35:59
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