Ambelin Kwaymullina is an Indigenous Australian children’s and YA writer, who also has a day job, as an Assistant Professor of Law. We first met at a science fiction convention and this delightful lady helped me get a school visit by Alice Pung to my disadvantaged school, for which the Stella Award folk paid.
She is also a talented illustrator and has done some picture books.
What I particularly remember her for, though, is her YA Tribe trilogy, starting with The Interrogation Of Ashala Wolf. At the end of this post, I will link you to my interview with her on this site.
The universe of the Tribe books is in the very distant future, when supercontinent Pangaea is back. The good news is that people are finally looking after the planet and the environment. The bad news is that in other ways, the world is a dystopia. There are people with powers of various kinds, including the heroine, and they are put into concentration camps.
Some of them escape and go into hiding. They call themselves the Tribe.
The novel is very Australian, understandably, and the villain is named after a real person, a “protector of Aborigines”. If you don’t live in Australia you will probably not know about these dreadful people who did anything but look after the needs of Indigenous Australians! Thankfully they are long gone.
There are two sequels, The Disappearance Of Ember Crow, and The Foretelling Of Georgie Spider. It was an amazing trilogy.
She and her brother Ezekial also wrote Catching Teller Crow, a YA novel with a ghost heroine, which won the YA section of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize and a Notable in the CBCA Award. The Notables are the long list (I actually got a Notable myself for my novel Wolfborn!)
The books are easily available on line, in ebook, print and audiobook. Do try them!
Here is my interview with the author.
https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-interview-of-ambelin-kwaymullina-on.html
PS It IS a trilogy though she said in the interview it would be four books.
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