Talking with Bruce Pascoe and his political thriller ‘Rube-Eyed Coucal’
ACU Art Gallery, 26 Brunswick St, Fitzroy (Melbourne)
Saturday 5 December 2015 : 2-4pm
During the Sampari Art Exhibition for West Papua (ACU Art Gallery, 4-13 December 2015), the West Papua Women’s Office-Docklands is hosting a series of events to inspire a bounty of imagery and knowledge about the land and its people, including a conversation with the celebrated Australian Indigenous author Bruce Pascoe about his first novel Ruby-eyed Coucal, the only (known) fictional work about West Papua.
Ruby-Eyed Coucal is a gripping novel and political thriller set in West Papua that examines historic and contemporary relations between Indigenous Australians and West Papuans. Central to the story is Baroong Baroong, a ruby-eyed coucal (bird), sacred to its Papuan kin for the precious stones in its gullet (gold, garnet, sapphire), and long-recognized by Aboriginal traders in northern Australia for its feathers. There’s also Jim Fox, an Aboriginal fighting alongside West Papuan freedom fighters, and his daughter Maree, who discovers her indigenous identity while journeying across Torres Strait to find him. And then there’s Doris Arinyeri, a determined Papuan woman; Kurul, tribal leader of the highland Mek; and Armos Tutilani the OPM leader who says “I will never think like a white or an Asian; I am Papuan, I can talk of a thousand grandfathers”.
Marketing card for Ruby-eyed Coucal by Rebecca Langley
Bruce Pascoe is an Indigenous Australian, and a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative. He is a prolific researcher and an award-winning writer, with works published in six languages and nine countries. He gave voice to the West Papuan struggle for independence in 1996 with Ruby-eyed Coucal and the companion novel Shark that which won the 1999 Fellowship of Australian Writers’ (FAW) Literature Award. Other publications include Lament for Three Hands about the tragedy at the Big Yango cave in New South Wales that won the 2010 FAW Short Story Award; and Fog, a Dox which won the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction. Dark Emu (2014), another celebrated rebuttal of colonial myths was published, like most of his books, by Magabala Press in Broome. Bruce was an important voice in the landmark 7-hour documentary ‘First Australians’ (https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/first-australians). He has nurtured hundreds of writers through Pascoe Publishing and Seaglass Books (with wife Lyn Harwood); as Director of the Australian Studies Project for the Commonwealth Schools Commission; and as editor-publisher of Australian Short Stories for sixteen years. As well as Aboriginal language researcher, lecturer, and archaeological site worker, Bruce has been a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, and farm fence contractor.
More on this event at
https://dfait.federalrepublicofwestpapua.net/document/ruby-eyed-coucal-in-conversation-with-the-author-bruce-pascoe/
Recording of this event at
https://youtu.be/p9BL1WhX9kk
OTHER EVENTS DURING THE SAMPARI ART EXHIBITION FOR WEST PAPUA
Spoken Word Poetry, featuring Jacob Rumbiak’s 2005 ‘Letter to the Heroes and Heroines’ read by Janette Liddelow, with performances by a host of Melbourne’s other poetic scribes. Sunday 6 December 2015 : 2-4 pm.
From the Honai Embassy, featuring Izzy Brown’s recent videos from West Papua. Friday 11 December 2015 : 6:30-8:30 pm.
Mt Carstensz (Namangkawi) Forum. Panel discussion on the devastating social and environmental impacts wrought by foreign exploitation of natural resources in Mt Carstensz and the highland communities of West Papua, including rare photographs of Nemangkawi in 1971-73. Saturday 12 December 2015 : 2-4 pm.
WP Rent Collective Christmas Party, featuring a Skyped interview with Edison Waromi (Prime Minister, Federal Republic of West Papua); and Bishop Hilton Deakin introducing A Dowry for the Sultan an historical novel by Lance Collins. Sunday 13 December 2015 : 2-4 pm.
ACU Gallery Hours
Monday to Friday 11am-7pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am-5pm
