After Before Time

(Paperback)

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Stories of life from a remote Aboriginal communitythat sing with vivid and simple life, truth and power.

At the end of 2008, Robbi Neal and her family travelled to the other end of mainland Australia to a remote Aboriginal community. They planned to stay for twelve months. Seven years later, they are still there.

This moving collection of linked narratives centring around a remote Indigenous community has been inspired by real people and real events - the stories might read like fiction, but they are based on fact. The events they describe really happened. Each story is true to the person who inspired it and Robbi has been given permission to share these truths by writing them down, both by the person who influenced each story and by the Elders concerned.

These stories sing with vivid and simple life, truth and power. These are stories of shame, pain and sorrow, but also joy and love - and they transform our understanding of 'the Indigenous experience'. The narratives tell familiar stories - of dispossession, destitution, children being taken away, hopelessness and powerlessness - but it tells them in a very different, direct, simple and powerfully moving way. Robbi Neal captures in a unique and compelling way the voices and histories of these people - their warmth, humour, wisdom and often their irrepressible joy.AFTER BEFORE TIME is profoundly fresh, powerful and moving.

'Reading After Before Time is a total heart experience. Be prepared to experience a whole gamut of feelings, as there is no soft-pedalling here. The characters disclose the depth of their anger, sadness, grief and pain, directly and bluntly. But there is also great love, warmth, and generosity of spirit towards each other and towards those whites who, over the generations, have loved and tried to help them. The book is rich with insights into customs, traditional beliefs, practices and culture; and humorous observations of what the protagonists regard as absurd white behaviour and demands.' Newtown Review of Books

Author Bio

Robbi Neal's first book SUNDAY BEST, a memoir was developed as part of the HarperCollins/Varuna awards program and published by HarperCollins in 2004. AFTER BEFORE TIME, which told stories of indigenous life in a remote community, was published in 2016. THE ART OF PRESERVING LOVE, a story that spanned 25 years from 1905 to 1930 was published in 2018 under the pen name Ada Langton. Robbi also paints and is currently working towards an exhibition scheduled for 2022 at Redot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore. She is a mama of five wonderful humans (you're welcome world). She has lived in country Victoria, Australia, for most of her life and lives only a few of blocks from where her novel THE SECRET WORLD OF CONNIE STARR (2022) is set. She loves to walk down Dawson Street past the church her grandfather preached in, the same church with the same columns that appear in in this book. When Robbi isn't writing, she is painting, or reading or hanging out with her family and friends, all of whom she adores. She loves procrasti-cooking, especially when thinking about the next chapter in her writing. She also loves cheese, any cheese, all cheese and lemon gin or dirty martinis, the blues, and more cheese. Photo Credit: Indea Leslie