As he does so, he gives us pieces of information about his own life from childhood, and he recounts his many journeys with his ancestors into the dreaming, where he learns from his elders some of the knowledge gained from thousands of years farming, cultivating, fishing, hunting and working the land, gathering in groups and societies, and telling ornate stories through complex oral histories.
Albert knows he is coming to the end of his life, and so he works on an extensive project to write down Aboriginal words and then explain their meaning in English. The first is the dictionary of Albert ‘Poppy’ Gondiwindi, who has spent his life at Prosperous House on Massacre Plains on the banks of the Murrumby River. The novel is structured on a framework of three narratives. In a proud memorialising of Aboriginal words and their meanings, Winch pays homage to her past and to the many elders who have gone before her, she recognises the important work done by others to faithfully record and remember language, and she tells a moving story that emphasises the pain and suffering of our First Nations Peoples, and the ripples of intergenerational trauma that still remain today. The much-anticipated new novel from author Tara June Winch, The Yield (Penguin Random House 2019) is a love song to language, culture and Indigenous heritage.
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