Melissa Lucashenko: Edenglassie

Award-winning Goorie author Melissa Lucashenko discusses her epic new novel with Daniel Browning. Edenglassie torches Queensland’s colonial myths, while reimagining an Australian future.

In this epic novel set in Brisbane, when First Nations people still outnumber the colonists, Melissa Lucashenko tells two extraordinary stories set five generations apart.

When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice.

Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Granny Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction. What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives.

Melissa Lucashenko is a Goorie (Aboriginal) author of Bundjalung and European heritage. Her first novel was published in 1997 and since then her work has received acclaim in many literary awards. Killing Darcy won the Royal Blind Society Award and was shortlisted for an Aurealis award. Her sixth novel, Too Much Lip, won the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Stella Prize, two Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, two Queensland Literary Awards and two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Melissa is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside. She writes about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead. Her latest book is Edenglassie.

Daniel Browning is an Aboriginal journalist, broadcaster, documentary maker, sound artist and writer. Currently, he is Editor Indigenous Radio with the ABC, overseeing the long standing flagships Speaking Out and Awaye. He also presents The Art Show on ABC RN and on podcast. He was executive producer of the investigative podcast Thin Black Line and more recently, the five-part series Song With No Boss, and established the much-loved language revival podcast Word Up. A visual arts graduate, Daniel is also a widely-published freelance arts writer. His anthology of collected writing Close to the Subject is published by the Indigenous-owned Magabala Books, with a foreword by Melissa Lucashenko. Daniel is a saltwater Goori from the Bundjalung people of far northern New South Wales on his father’s side and the Kullilli people of south-western Queensland through his mother.