Unsettled

What does it mean to be on land taken from others?

‘What does it mean to be on land that was taken from other people? Now that we know how the taking was done, what do we do with that knowledge?’

Kate Grenville is no stranger to the past. Her success and fame as a writer exploded when she published The Secret River in 2005, a bestseller based on the story of her convict ancestor, an early settler on the Hawkesbury River.

More than two decades on, and following the defeat of the Voice referendum, Grenville is still grappling with what it means to descend from people who were, as she puts it, ‘on the sharp edge of the moving blade that was colonisation’.

So she decides to go on a kind of pilgrimage, back through the places her family stories happened, and put the stories and the First People back into the same frame, on the same country, to try to think about those questions. This gripping book is the result of that journey.

'Grenville's pages are streaked with light … Kate Grenville is, like Kim Scott and Lia Hills here and Percival Everett in the US, turning our faces towards the two dazzlingly contemporary questions central to all of us, Colonisation and Race.'—The Age

'A beautifully written exploration of geography, spirituality and settlement … Grenville is to be celebrated for vulnerably setting forth into our darkest corners, unsettling us all.' —ArtsHub

'Effortless and artful … Unsettled, and the collective memory and identity it invokes, speaks powerfully to a structure of postcolonial feeling within Australian society' —The Conversation

'A gripping, profound look at colonisation that puts First Nations' stories back in the frame.'—Harper's Bazaar

'An unforgettable reimagining and retelling of history that is, in turns, intimate, unsparing – and confronting.' —Good Weekend

'This is a book of deep and complex musings with sharp illuminations – tiny gold nuggets rising up through the hidden sands of time … The book allows the reader space to breathe somewhere ­between the worlds of fact and fiction, and feel into the space ­between the past and present. Through her own journey, Grenville gives her readers a road map for a deeper understanding.'—The Australian