Research Catalog

Title

Daisy Bates in the desert / Julia Blackburn.

Author

Blackburn, Julia

Publication

New York : Pantheon Books, c1994.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 232 p. : ill.; 21 cm.

Summary

• In 1913, when she was 54 years old, Daisy Bates went to live in the deserts of South Australia. And there she stayed, with occasional interruptions, for almost 30 years. She left a detailed record of her life in her letters, her published articles, her book The Passing of the Aborigines, and in notes scribbled on paper bags, old railway timetables, and even scraps of newspaper. But very little of what this strange woman tells about herself is true. For her there were no boundaries separating experience from imagination; she inhabited a world filled with events that could not have taken place, with people she had never met. In Daisy Bates in the Desert Julia Blackburn explores the ancient and desolate landscape where Mrs. Bates says she was most happy. There are meetings with the aborigines and whites who knew her or about her, and slowly the facts of her life are allowed to emerge. But what makes this book so extraordinary is the way that, almost imperceptibly, the author fuses her own imagination and experience with that of Daisy Bates, until she seems to be recalling this other life as if it were her own, until she is able to bring us the feeling of sitting in a tent near a railway line, staring out across a red desert, where the boundary between experience and imagination disappears. This magical, absorbing new book by the acclaimed author of The Emperor's Last Island confirms Julia Blackburn as one of Britain's most original and talented writers. - Jacket flap.
• A portrait of a middle-aged Irishwoman who spent nearly thirty years living in the deserts of South Australia among the Aborigines of the outback.

Subject

• Bates, Daisy, 1861-1951
• Women > Australia > Biography
• Aboriginal Australians > Social life and customs
• Aboriginal Australians > Social conditions
• Australia > Biography

Genre/Form

Biographies

Note

• "Originally published in Great Britain by Martin Secker and Warburg Limited in 1994"--T.p. verso.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-232).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Part one. There was once a woman who lived in the desert -- There was once a woman who lived in the desert and her name was Daisy Bates -- I first heard of Daisy Bates about 25 years ago -- How did she get there? -- I have a very vivid recollection of my childhood -- Daisy Bates tried to shut out so many of the facts of her own life -- I'll give her a dream from her childhood -- She leaves Australia and after five years she comes back to Australia -- What does she expect when she comes back after having been away so long? -- In 1905 Daisy Bates set up her tent with the Aborigines on the Reserve at Maamba -- I once stayed briefly with some gypsies in southern Spain -- Part two. I am Daisy Bates in the desert, stretched out on the floor of my tent -- I have been thinking about Eucla; calming my mind with thoughts of Eucla -- In Ireland I once saw a man lying dead on a table in the front room of his own house -- It must have been while I was at Eucla that I killed my husband; killed him in my mind I mean -- I wish I had a photograph of Fanny Balbuk -- I have been sorting through the metal deed boxes in which I keep my papers -- I look around at my tent, round and round at my tent -- I couldn't sleep last night -- They call the mountain-devil lizard ming-ari, which means full-of-ants -- Long ago when I was a child in Ireland there was a little village church that I would visit whenever I could -- Today is as hot and quiet as yesterday -- The station master gave me a bundle of old record books -- The fever made me feel so old -- And then Annie Lock arrived at Ooldea -- In the New Year's Honors List for 1934 I was awarded the Order of the Commander of the British Empire -- Part three. Mrs. Bates on the radio -- Mrs. Bates and the tomatoes -- Mrs. Bates and the policeman -- Mrs. Bates and the sweet oranges --Mrs. Bates runs away -- Mrs. Bates and the island ship -- Mrs. Bates at Ooldea -- Select bibliography.

ISBN

0679420010

LCCN

^^^94001666^

OCLC

• 30035440
• SCSB-9900222

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library