'An against all odds historical love story set in WW 2 Cowra, central NSW about a Japanese prisoner of war (Hiroshi) who escapes from the POW compound and is taken in by a member of the local Aboriginal Mission (Banjo Williams). His eldest daughter Mary and Hiroshi fall for one another over the year that he is with them but her father and the Acts of Protection and Assimilation stand in the way of any future happiness...'' (Publication summary)
Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossom was chosen by the University of Canberra as Book of the Year in 2019. It was given to every student and staff member and promoted in the university book club.
'This article explores the role of humour in three contemporary Aboriginal texts that document Aboriginal–Asian relationships. Humour in Aboriginal texts has mostly been studied with reference to the ostensible binaries between Aboriginal and European, Black and White, colonised and colonisers. Scant critical attention has been paid to the place of humour in revealing and concealing the dynamic interrelations between Aboriginal people and Asian immigrants living under a colonial regime. This article investigates humour as a textual device that transmits subversive ideas contesting stigma and stereotypes of Aboriginal and Asian peoples regarding their identities, bodies, and inter-racial intimacies. Through close readings of Alexis Wright’s novel Plains of Promise (1997), Tex and Nelly Camfoo’s autobiography Love against the Law (2000) and Anita Heiss’s historical romance Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms (2016), this article considers three specific modes of humour in Aboriginal texts: self-deprecation, puns/wit, and boasting. The article contends that these different forms of humour draw attention to a range of unsettling issues and power relations concerning oppression and resistance, stigmatisation and normalisation, institutional control and surveillance. Further in each of these texts humour works to deconstruct images of discrete and maligned racialised otherness.' (Publication abstract)
'This is the story of what might have happened if an escaped Japanese prisoner was sheltered by Aborigines during World War 2'
'Mary's father, Banjo, and uncle Kevin often speak of the injustices done to the Black community by the Australian government, like being denied the right to vote or being segregated from whites in movie theaters and hospitals. Mary's family knows what that feels like, and though not every family member wants to keep Hiroshi safe, the recognition that his place in the country is not unlike their own compels them to let him stay. The novel, though a fascinating read, exhibits flaws. Because it is largely told from Mary's perspective, pages are consumed by her thoughts, dreams, fears, and worries, and the narrative drags occasionally.' (Publication abstract)
'Many years ago I read a now forgotten novel by a now forgotten author, which had a truly wonderful preface. It read, simply, this bloody book nearly killed me. I therefore dedicate it, dear Reader, to myself. There is a delicate irony at play, I think, in my long remembering this dedication while the book itself is erased completely from my memory. I’ll touch on the interplay of knowledge and memory in due course. What I want to start by saying, though, is that in my case, as in the case of that forgotten preface’s author, while writing can be a horrifically stressful business - and while writing this paper did indeed feel like it was going to kill me - the Author is emphatically Not Dead.' (Introduction)
'Hiroshi's fortunate fate is to find himself protected in the Aboriginal mission.'In depicting an intimate sideline to the story of the breakout of more than 1000 Japanese prisoners from their camp in Cowra on August 5, 1944, Anita Heiss' Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms explores different territory from her predecessors...'(Introduction)
'Hiroshi's fortunate fate is to find himself protected in the Aboriginal mission.'In depicting an intimate sideline to the story of the breakout of more than 1000 Japanese prisoners from their camp in Cowra on August 5, 1944, Anita Heiss' Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms explores different territory from her predecessors...'(Introduction)
'Many years ago I read a now forgotten novel by a now forgotten author, which had a truly wonderful preface. It read, simply, this bloody book nearly killed me. I therefore dedicate it, dear Reader, to myself. There is a delicate irony at play, I think, in my long remembering this dedication while the book itself is erased completely from my memory. I’ll touch on the interplay of knowledge and memory in due course. What I want to start by saying, though, is that in my case, as in the case of that forgotten preface’s author, while writing can be a horrifically stressful business - and while writing this paper did indeed feel like it was going to kill me - the Author is emphatically Not Dead.' (Introduction)
'Mary's father, Banjo, and uncle Kevin often speak of the injustices done to the Black community by the Australian government, like being denied the right to vote or being segregated from whites in movie theaters and hospitals. Mary's family knows what that feels like, and though not every family member wants to keep Hiroshi safe, the recognition that his place in the country is not unlike their own compels them to let him stay. The novel, though a fascinating read, exhibits flaws. Because it is largely told from Mary's perspective, pages are consumed by her thoughts, dreams, fears, and worries, and the narrative drags occasionally.' (Publication abstract)
'This article explores the role of humour in three contemporary Aboriginal texts that document Aboriginal–Asian relationships. Humour in Aboriginal texts has mostly been studied with reference to the ostensible binaries between Aboriginal and European, Black and White, colonised and colonisers. Scant critical attention has been paid to the place of humour in revealing and concealing the dynamic interrelations between Aboriginal people and Asian immigrants living under a colonial regime. This article investigates humour as a textual device that transmits subversive ideas contesting stigma and stereotypes of Aboriginal and Asian peoples regarding their identities, bodies, and inter-racial intimacies. Through close readings of Alexis Wright’s novel Plains of Promise (1997), Tex and Nelly Camfoo’s autobiography Love against the Law (2000) and Anita Heiss’s historical romance Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms (2016), this article considers three specific modes of humour in Aboriginal texts: self-deprecation, puns/wit, and boasting. The article contends that these different forms of humour draw attention to a range of unsettling issues and power relations concerning oppression and resistance, stigmatisation and normalisation, institutional control and surveillance. Further in each of these texts humour works to deconstruct images of discrete and maligned racialised otherness.' (Publication abstract)
