Dancing Home: First Nations Classics

(Paperback, 2nd ed.)

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Description

Now included in UQP's First Nations Classics series with an introduction from Samuel Wagan Watson, Dancing Home is part road-movie, part 'Koori-noir' from an original and darkly funny new voice. 'When he was in gaol, he'd begun to prepare himself for the fight of his life, a showdown with the policeman, McWilliams ... he'd face life with death, and see who blinked first.' Blackie and Rips are fresh out of prison when they set off on a road trip back to Wiradjuri country with their mate Carlos. Blackie is out for revenge against the cop who put him in prison on false grounds. He is also craving to reconnect with his grandmother's country. Driven by his hunger for drugs and payback, Blackie reaches dark places of both mystery and beauty as he searches for peace. Moreover he is willing to pay for that peace with his own life.

Author Bio

Paul Collis is a Barkindji man, born in Bourke in far western NSW on the Darling River. Paul worked in Newcastle for much of his young adult life in the areas of teaching and in Aboriginal community development positions. He has taught Aboriginal Studies to Indigenous inmates at the Worimi and Mount Penang juvenile detention centres and in Cessnock and Maitland prisons. Paul has a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Doctorate in Communications. He lives in Canberra and works as a Creative Writing academic at the University of Canberra. Dancing Home is his first novel and won the 2016 David Unaipon Award and the 2018 ACT Book of the Year Award.