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Literary Review
Reclaiming a heritage
KIM SCOTT talks to K. KUNHIKRISHNAN about the impulses behind his writing and his positions vis-à-vis the issues in Australian writing today. Excerpts:
How much of personal element is there in your novels? Both the narrators seem to be part of you, because of the unique style of narration.
THERE is of course a personal element in each of these novels, in that they probably reflect my own psychological preoccupations. Like many novelists, I also draw from aspects of my experience. However, I like to think that in writing fiction I get a chance to be more true than the truth.
You are writing about the Nyoongar community, their crises of identity and repression. But who are your target readers? You have stated that you were well "protected".
Hard to say; probably I write for myself first, and often it's to use a story to think something out, or to try and resolve something. That might seem self-indulgent, but I like to think also of Eduardo Galeano's comment that a writer is sending a reaching out to all one's friends — many of whom he does not yet know — and embracing them with his language.
Yes, as an individual I don't share the immediate experience of oppression and racism that the majority of Nyoongars do, and which is therefore probably an important part of their sense of identity.
What inspired you to focus your writings on the genealogical aspects of Nyoongars? Was it because of your personal experiences or of the immediate family? You also mention the census counting the Nyoongars as mere stock!
Part of the inspiration was to confront the racist fixation of the bureaucracy concerned with overseeing Nyoongar people, and their use of racist ideologies — and especially the pseudo-science of eugenics — to control and classify individuals. I think it is a way of thinking which is reductionist and limited.
As against that, genealogies are a part of finding connections to traditional country — the country of one's Nyoongar ancestors — and reconnecting with other people descended from that same traditional country. Such processes are part of recovering from the negative effects of colonisation, part of reclaiming culture and heritage.
Are you promoting the Nyoongar culture or speaking on their behalf? Are there other so-called aboriginal cultural groups in Australia and similar voices like that of yours that use literary writing as the medium for the purpose?
I don't wish to be seen as a spokesperson. One of the reasons I express my biographical note in terms of "one among those who call themselves Nyoongar" is to stress that I am in many ways dependent upon that community, and to locate authority in that community rather than in myself as an individual. I don't wish to say that I am speaking on behalf of other Nyoongars, though I am pleased when Nyoongars support what I say.
There's a lot of Indigenous writing happening in Australia. In Queensland, there are people like Sam Watson, Melissa Lucashenko, Boori Pryor, Jacki Huggins, Fiona Doyle, Lional Fogarty. In New South Wales people like Anita Heiss, Kerry Reed Gilbert, Philip McLaren. Western Australia has people like Rosemary van den Berg, Alf Taylor (both Nyoongar), Sally Morgan, Jimmy Chi, Ambrose Mungala Chalarimeri...
Do you think your novels promote a reconciliation of the new and old cultures in Australia? Are the novels obliquely aimed at uplifting and elevating? Do you take a compassionate view of the oppressors of the Nyoongars, as your novels depict?
I like to think that my novels are part of promoting the continuation of the Nyoongar culture into the present in a dynamic way rather than as a "museum" piece to be patronised. Thus, Benang is influenced, I believe, by aspects of traditional story telling methods; the place, teller and listener determine what is told first, it uses rhythm and repetition etc. This is especially important rather than the story being structured according to chronology, which of course lends itself to such linear notions as "progress", and "social evolution".
Obliquely aimed at uplifting and elevating? Not in the sense that those words are used in the archives. But, obliquely, at restoring some balancing of the power relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia and thus allowing for more justice and opportunities for Indigenous people.
I always try to be compassionate, believing that compassion and spiritual generosity are fundamental characteristics of Nyoongar culture, although those qualities have often been abused and overlooked in the history of colonisation, and are perhaps less obvious to an outsider because of the legacy of oppression the Nyoongar community is burdened with.
There are references to nature, fauna and flora in your novels. For example the tree is simultaneously a threat and comfort. What is the significance of such imagery?
Nature contains the most obvious expressions of the spirit of the land. The damage done to it is an obvious illustration of the devastation wrought by colonisation. Australia's natural environment has often been seen as hostile from the "British", non-indigenous perspective.
In Benang you have used a unique style of narration, based on documents and narration. It consists of incidents narrated by people whom Harley happens to meet and there are no proper linkages. There are also many silences in the narrative...
I wanted to tell it using the language of the archives, and turning that language back on itself so that a reader becomes aware of a larger world, a larger sensibility that can be contained within such a language. Mick Dodson — the Aboriginal activist and thinker — in his "Wentworth Lecture: Re-representing Aboriginality" speaks of the need for Indigenous people to take control of how they are represented. Part of this is a process of deconstruction of the way we have been represented. Part of my project in Benang — though it was not necessarily a conscious intention — was to do that, and thereby make space for other ways of thinking about ourselves while still using English. Related to that is the minor use of language, and of less orthodox (in a literary sense) ways of telling the story.
Juxtaposition and rhythm are more important than chronology, or cause and effect. I think there are linkages, just of a different sort.
What are your plans for the future? Do you think you have a lot more to write about Nyoongars?
My writing stems from my own position in Australian society. I'm involved in many projects other than ones to do with literary fiction, and they include non-fiction collaborations with cultural elders, and language and cultural regeneration projects. I think there's a lot more to be written about Nyoongar people, and especially much more to be written by Nyoongar people. I see the return and consolidation to the Nyoongar community of what should be our cultural heritage as a priority.
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