'The story of what happened to the Kanaka labourers on the Queensland sugar plantations of the late nineteenth century is a saga of great suffering and trauma. Kissaway, a Melanesian youth from the island of Tanna in the New Hebrides, is forced under dubious circumstances to board a ship that is collecting Melanesian labourers for the sugar plantations. Kissaway soon shows his mettle when he escapes the ship but is recaptured forcefully. He is one who does not readily submit to his white masters. The brutality aboard the ship is something he resists. Upon arrival in Mackay Kissaway is contracted to Harold Murdoch, the owner of thee Pleystowe plantation, where he works long hours with the other Kanakas for precious little income.'
'Kissaway soon begins to identify with the suffering of his people but soon learns there is little he can do. Kissaway is drawn into an illicit relationship with Cordelia Ash, the sister-in-law of Harold Murdoch. When the relationship is discovered Kissaway is forced to escape into the rain forests on the northern side of the Pioneer River. He links up with an old Kanaka by the name of Bobongie who helps him to survive as a fugitive.'
'Eventually Kissaway finds his way to the Walkerston Mission where he finds love before a new missioner arrives and he is faced with the threat of deportation, losing his family and connection with his people.' (Source: Author's Linked in website)
'The ‘gentlemen of the flashing blade’ laboured in an occupation that no longer exists in Australia: canecutting. It was a hard job done by hard men, and its iconic figure – the canecutter – survives as a Queensland legend, so extensively romanticized in the popular culture of the time as to constitute a subgenre characterized by subject matter and motifs particular to the pre-mechanization sugar country culture. Yet, it may seem like the only canecutters immortalized in the arts are Summer of the Seventeenth Doll’s Roo and Barney. To show the breadth and diversity of this subgenre, and the legend of the canecutter and sugar country culture, this article reviews a selection of novels, memoirs, plays, short stories, cartoons, verse, song, film, television, radio and children’s books. These works address the racial, cultural and industrial politics of the sugar industry and its influence on the economic and social development of Queensland. The parts played by the nineteenth-century communities of indentured South Sea Islanders and the European immigrants who followed are represented along with those of the itinerant Anglos. These works depict, and celebrate, a colourful, often brutal, part of Queensland’s past and an Australian icon comparable with the swaggie or the shearer.' (Publication abstract)
'The ‘gentlemen of the flashing blade’ laboured in an occupation that no longer exists in Australia: canecutting. It was a hard job done by hard men, and its iconic figure – the canecutter – survives as a Queensland legend, so extensively romanticized in the popular culture of the time as to constitute a subgenre characterized by subject matter and motifs particular to the pre-mechanization sugar country culture. Yet, it may seem like the only canecutters immortalized in the arts are Summer of the Seventeenth Doll’s Roo and Barney. To show the breadth and diversity of this subgenre, and the legend of the canecutter and sugar country culture, this article reviews a selection of novels, memoirs, plays, short stories, cartoons, verse, song, film, television, radio and children’s books. These works address the racial, cultural and industrial politics of the sugar industry and its influence on the economic and social development of Queensland. The parts played by the nineteenth-century communities of indentured South Sea Islanders and the European immigrants who followed are represented along with those of the itinerant Anglos. These works depict, and celebrate, a colourful, often brutal, part of Queensland’s past and an Australian icon comparable with the swaggie or the shearer.' (Publication abstract)
