Swallow the Air: First Nations Classics

(Paperback, 4th ed.)

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Description

With an introduction from UQP's First Nations Classics series editor Yasmin Smith, Swallow the Air is the much-loved debut of Miles Franklin Award-winner Tara June Winch. When May's mother dies suddenly, she and her brother Billy are taken in by Aunty. However, their loss leaves them both searching for their place in a world that doesn't seem to want them. While Billy takes his own destructive path, May sets out to find her father and her Aboriginal identity. Her journey leads her from the Australian east coast to the far north, but it is the people she meets, not the destinations, that teach her what it is to belong. Swallow the Air is an unforgettable story of living in a torn world and finding the thread to help sew it back together.

Author Bio

Tara June Winch is a Wiradjuri author, born in Australia in 1983 and based in France. Her first novel, Swallow the Air, was critically acclaimed and she was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist, and has won numerous literary awards. A tenth anniversary edition was published in 2016. In 2008, Tara was mentored by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka as part of the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative. Her second book, the story collection After the Carnage, was published in 2016. It was longlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, and shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the Queensland Literary Award for a story collection. Her most recent novel, The Yield, won the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.