WALG by B. Wongar

WALG

A Novel of Australia

by B. Wongar

Macmillan, 1986, ISBN 0333430115, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous owners gift inscription on front endpaper, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing to edges and corners (see photographs)

“In this haunting novel, B. Wongar has drawn upon tribal traditions and poetry learned from his late wife, Djumala, the heroine of the story.
The fertility cult of the Australian Aborigines believes that the land is an extension of man’s body and soul, a unity with nature that ensures regeneration cycles.  If it is disturbed, life would cease.  The white men, the balandas, are the disturbance as they ravage the earth in their lustful search for uranium wealth, even as they rape and mutilate the tribal girls whose destruction will extinguish the tribe and vacate the mineral-rich territory for the whites.
Djumala, carrying her unborn child, journeys with her dog, Muru, across the familiar bush away from the land of the white man to Galwan, her tribal country – her walg or womb.  She seeks her mother to learn the tribal secrets of motherhood and thus prolong the life of her decimated tribe.
It is a desolate journey through the shattered landscape that the white man has strangled by his plunder, stealing the magic left in the protection of the tribal spirits and the legend that life can always spring from dust, if there is a woman around to mother it.”