After Story (Unabridged)
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4.4 • 22 Ratings
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
When a mother and daughter take the overseas trip of a lifetime, they discover that the past is never quite behind them.
When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother, Della, on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past.
Twenty-five years earlier, the disappearance of Jasmine's older sister devastated their tight-knit community. This tragedy returns to haunt Jasmine and Della when another child mysteriously goes missing on Hampstead Heath. As Jasmine immerses herself in the world of her literary idols - including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and Virginia Woolf - Della is inspired to rediscover the wisdom of her own culture and storytelling. But sometimes the stories that are not told can become too great to bear.
Ambitious and engrossing, After Story celebrates the extraordinary power of words and the quiet spaces between. We can be ready to listen, but are we ready to hear?
Prof. Larissa Behrendt is a Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman. She is the professor of law and director of research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney.
She is admitted to the Supreme Court of the ACT and NSW as a barrister. Larissa is a land commissioner at the Land and Environment Court and the alternate chair of the Serious Offenders Review Board, a member of the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia and a founding member of the Australian Academy of Law. She is the chair of the Humanities and Creative Arts panel of the Australian Research Council College of Experts. She is the author of several books on Indigenous legal issues.
She won the 2002 David Uniapon Award and a 2005 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for her novel Home. Larissa is a board member of the Museum of Contemporary Art, a board member of Tranby Aboriginal College and a director of the Bangarra Dance Theatre. She was named as 2009 NAIDOC Person of the Year.
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APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This superb audiobook by Larissa Behrendt—a Eualeyai and Kamillaroi woman whose talents span the law, academia, writing, advocacy and filmmaking—is about the way the stories of the past resonate with meaning today, and the differing cultural value ascribed to written and oral storytelling traditions. When lawyer Jasmine invites her mother, Della, on a literary tour of England, she hopes the trip will close the gap that formed between them when Jasmine’s sister, Brittany, disappeared aged seven. As they explore England’s most revered literary sites, old grievances and family secrets surface. The alternating dual perspectives are narrated brilliantly by Tamala Shelton and Shari Sebbens, emphasising the distinct narrative voices of Behrendt’s memorable main characters. This profoundly moving and darkly funny listen reverberates with the strain of grief and trauma. But After Story also reminds us that when we tend to the present moment, the people we love, and the stories of those who have gone, solace can follow.
