Outspoken Maleny presents David Marr and Mirandi Riwoe with Steven Lang
DAVID Marr and Mirandi Riwoe will join Steven Lang in conversation at Maleny’s upcoming Outspoken event at the Maleny Community Centre on Tuesday October 24 from 6pm.
When David Marr set out to research the life of his great-grandmother the last thing he expected to find was a photograph of her father, dressed in the uniform of the Native Police.
“I was appalled and curious,” he wrote.
“I have been writing about the politics of race all my career. I know what side I’m on.
“Yet that afternoon I found, in the lower branches of my family tree, Sub-Inspector Reginald Uhr, a professional killer of Aborigines… and his brother D’arcy… also in the massacre business.”
David’s curiosity lead him to study early New South Wales politics, how land was apportioned to the squatters, and the activities of the Native Police.
Out of this has come his extraordinary new book, Killing For Country.
David wrote books including his wonderful biography, Patrick White, a Life; Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson), and no less than six Quarterly Essays, and for publications such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Saturday Paper and The Monthly.
He has won three Walkley Awards and two honorary Doctorates as one of Australia’s most esteemed journalist and author.
The introducing author will be Mirandi Riwoe, speaking about her new book, Sunbirds. Set in Java during the Second World War – at the time of Japan’s inexorable move southwards – Sunbirds depicts the intricate web of identities and loyalties created by war and imperialism, and the heartbreaking compromises that so often ensue. Mirandi’s previous novel, Stone Sky Gold Mountain, won the 2020 Queensland Fiction Book Award and the inaugural ARA History Novel Prize.
Tickets start at $18 for students and $25 for adults.
