The Yield: Winner of the 2020 Miles Franklin Award
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4.2 • 51 Ratings
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
Experience the powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language and identity in Tara June Winch's The Yield, narrated by Tony Briggs.
A Legacy of Words
The yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land. In the language of the Wiradjuri, yield is the things you give to, the movement, the space between things: baayanha.
Knowing that he will soon die, Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind.
A Return to Roots
August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather's death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends, she endeavours to save their land - a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river.
A Celebration of Endurance
Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch's The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling, and identity.
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'Take courage when you read this book. You'll need it. Winch asks big questions of this country. Is the answer within us?' Bruce Pascoe
'Mesmerising and important.' Melissa Lucashenko
'A lyrical, courageous storyteller, Winch redefines Australia in this generational tale of reclamation and hope.' The Times
'Intensely moving, gripping, brutal and yet so full of generosity. I learned so much about the lyrical Wiradjuri language. Brilliant.' Annabel Crabb
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The Yield is an exceptional feat of experimental storytelling from Tara June Winch, one of the country’s most singular literary talents. Narrated with confidence and delicacy by actor and writer Tony Briggs (best known for writing the play The Sapphires), the novel centres around August Gondiwindi, who returns home from Europe to Massacre Plains in the wake of her grandfather’s death. The book traverses nearly 200 years of history, and Briggs imbues the perspectives of the three different narrators with pathos and intensity. An unflinching portrait of colonial violence and grief, The Yield is about finding strength through the reclamation and restoration of history. Some of the novel’s most affecting sections are diary entries that draw upon A New Wiradjuri Dictionary, woven through with Winch’s lyrical storytelling. This riveting novel is Winch’s first since her award-winning 2006 debut Swallow the Air, published when she was only 22.
