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'The main achievement of Kate Grenville's return to the theme of Australian colonial history after 2000. The novel guides readers to think about the complex factors that lead to colonial violence by digging into the "first contact" between white people and Australian aborigines. The novelist's approach to historical material and her stance on "indigenous representation" make the work a focal text of a far-reaching "historical war" in the country's cultural life. The debates surrounding it have increased the breadth and depth of Australia's collective cultural memory from different angles. These debates, ostensibly a struggle for the right to interpret history between novelists who "appropriate" historical themes and historians who seek to preserve the purity of the discipline, are in fact the development of a decades-long ideological struggle in the country in a new field and extension. Influenced by the mainstream new right-wing ideas, some historians try to occupy a major seat in the social and cultural environment where conservatism dominates, so as to restore their former influence in the public sphere. Grenville, who was on the cusp of the storm, did not back down, and his positive attitude inspired other writers who devoted themselves to exploring Australian history.' (Publication abstract)
