Though it took a little while to fall into the rhythm of the book, once I did and realised what it was doing, preserving a language and sharing a culture, while telling the story of one who returns, having been separated from it through travel (and a non-inclusive education), I thought it was brilliant.

The Wiradjuri Aboriginal people, of which the author is a descendant, are a people and a culture that have been dispossessed, yet in some respects and from an alternate perspective, can also be said to have thrived despite the setback of colonialization.

The Yield is an acknowledgement of what was, a perspective on what it is to straddle dual cultures and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and cultural identity, one that will endure.

Known as the people of the three rivers, Wiradjuri people have inhabited modern-day New South Wales, Australia for more than 60,000 years. At the time of European colonization, there were an estimated 3,000 Wiradjuri living in the region, representing the largest cultural footprint in the state.

A Triple Narrative, Of Voice, Time and Style

The story is told through three voices, in three narrative styles, across three time periods, that I have come to think of metaphorically as the past, present and future of Aboriginal culture.

The Future, reclaiming one’s culture

The first person narrative is the voice of Albert (Poppy), the grandfather of the fictional Gondiwindi family. He is no longer living when we read his granddaughter August’s account of her return from England to Australia, he is the reason she returns, for his funeral.

He has written down important words that populate and are interspersed throughout the entire novel, the mystery of them revealed as the narrative moves forward.

English changed their tongues, the formation of their minds, August thought – she’d drifted in and out of herself all that time. The language was the poem she had looked for, communicating what English failed to say. Her poppy used to say the words were paramount. That they were like icebergs floating, melting, that there were ocean depths to them that they couldn’t have talked about.

Nothing like your average dictionary, Poppy’s entries are an accessible rendering of words in his indigenous language, his descriptions or meanings are anecdotal stories of an oral tradition, ensuring we understand. More than mere words, they preserve a culture, they are evidence of a civilisation. They are the future, a key to the longevity and respect of his people’s lineage.

ashamed, have shame – giyal-dhuray I’m done with this word. I’d leave it out completely but I can’t. It’s become part of the dictionary we think we should carry. We mustn’t anymore. See, pain travels through our family tree like a songline. We’ve been singing our pain into a solid thing. The old ones, the young ones too, are ready to heal. We don’t have to be giyal-dhuray anymore, we don’t have to pass that down to anyone.

The Present, a return to one’s culture

The second person narrative is the present day account of August’s return, of her discovery that her grandmother Elsie is being forced to leave the family property because of a mining company claim and the way it has been presented to them, is as if they have no right to or compensation for the land or buildings.

Elsie isn’t prepared to fight, but August becomes aware of her grandfather’s project, of what is required to potentially save the land and reinstate their existence. It is a time of reckoning as she allows events of the past to rise, and rather than run from them, can make amends.

There is also the presence of outsiders, activists on the hill, ready to intervene if necessary. These people are something of an enigma to August and her family. In challenging one of them, she highlights that aspect of humanity – that there is always someone whose call is to agitate and prick the social conscious of the other, that it’s often not those to whom the injustice is being done. When Mandy warns August to be careful and to conceal herself, she tells her she’s nobody anyway.

“You are somebody. But these days we can’t do anything as somebody, we can only do something as nobody. The nobody of everybody.”
August thought for a moment. “I don’t get it.”
“When something is important enough that it’s personal to everyone,” Mandy added.

The Past, overriding one culture with another

A third epistolary narrative, is a series of letters written by a British/German Reverend Ferdinand Greenleaf who lived in the area in the late 1800’s and wrote an account of his attempt to build a mission. His few letters are spread across the novel, recording his intentions, his observations and his responses to all that he witnessed.

It is here we read of the past treatment of people, the struggles, the behaviours, the results, the small successes, the failures and the reminder that anyone can become a future victim when the allegiances of a nation turn.

respect – yindyamarra I think I’ve come to realise that with some things, you cannot receive them unless you give them too. Unless you’ve even got the opportunity to give and receive. Only equals can share respect, otherwise it’s a game of masters and slaves – someone always has the upper hand when they are demanding respect. But yindyamarra is another thing too, it’s a way of life – a life of kindness, gentleness, and respect at once. That seems like a good thing to share, our yindyamarra.

The Many Ways to Preserve a Cultural Heritage

The entire novel is a monumental endeavour, encompassing as it does, this one language of the hundreds that existed and have either become extinct, or are under threat of becoming so.

The way the words and language create a bridge of understanding of a way of life and thinking is indeed a celebration. The thought of one man spending his latter years in pursuit of this, of sharing all that he knew, so he could pass it on, in the way of the coloniser – using the written word and not the oral stories of the past that risk dying out – is remarkable and uplifting.

It’s Never to Late to Be An Inspiration

One of the inspirations for the book was the work of Wiradjuri elder Mr Stan Grant Senior, whose contribution has since earned him an honory doctorate for his life’s work to reclaim the Wiradjuri language.

With an anthropologist, John Rudder, Mr. Grant has breathed new life into the language. They worked together on a revision of a long-neglected Wiradjuri dictionary, “A New Wiradjuri Dictionary,” almost 600 pages in length, as well as a collection of small grammar books. – extract, New York Times

I love that stories like this are being written, helping to preserve a much wronged culture and people, and that a new generation of writers are using literature to further develop empathy and understanding.

Highly Recommended, a future classic!

“I was told when you revive a lost language, you give it back to all mankind,” he said, sitting in his kitchen, not far from where the kingfishers darted across the Murrumbidgee.
“We were a nothing people for a long time. And it is a big movement now, learning Wiradjuri. I’ve done all that work. I’ve done all I can.” Stan Grant Sr

About the Author, Tara June Winch

Tara June Winch is a Wiradjuri author, born in Australia in 1983 and based in France. Her first novel, Swallow the Air was critically acclaimed. She was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist, and has won numerous literary awards for Swallow the Air. The novel has been on the HSC syllabus for Standard and Advanced English since 2009 and a 10th-anniversary edition was published in 2016.

In 2008, she won a prestigious mentoring scheme and was mentored by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka who introduced her to a whole new world of reading; for the first time, she began making links between Greek tragedies, biblical myth and Indigenous dreaming stories.

There’s a wonderful video interview of the two of them in Nigeria available online.

Soyinka chose Winch to be his protégée because of her “sure hand [and] observant eye”.

The Yield, was first published in 2019, to commercial and critical success and took out four prizes including Book of the Year at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Voss Prize, and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. It was shortlisted for The Stella Prize.

Further Reading

The Guardian Interview: I had to be manic’: Tara June Winch on her unmissable new novel – and surviving Andrew Bolt by Sian Cain
Article New York Times: An Heir to a Tribe’s Culture Ensures Its Language Is Not Forgotten by Michelle Innis
ABC News: January 26 is a reminder that Australia still hasn’t reckoned with its original sin by Stan Grant, 27 Jan 2021

N.B. Thank you to Harper Via, an imprint of Harper Collins dedicated to publishing extraordinary international voices for an ARC (advance reader copy) provided via Netgalley.

This is an own voices, aboriginal Australian insight into the struggles indigenous culture has had to survive.

The book takes from letters, a unique Aboriginal dictionary and August’s perspective. The book’s focus is language and the importance of maintaining culture through language, along with family struggles, identity, cruelty and exploitation.

4,5 out of 5 stars.
It took a bit of time for me to get used to the different voices and to get into the story, but then it got so good! Winch excellently tells the history of the aborigines and how the English arrived and took over everything. She does so in an honest and nuanced way from three different point of views which makes you reflect and reconsider the beliefs you may have had. Powerful, accomplished and heartfelt.
Thank you Harper and Netgalley for the ARC.

I really wake this book with its focus on Australian indigenous populations through a century of time. However I found it difficult to get in to and, being honest, I gave up about a third of the way in.

"Yield, bend the feet, tread, as in walking, also long, tall— baayanha</b>
Yield itself is a funny word— yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land, the thing he’s waited for and gets to claim. A wheat yield. In my language it’s the things you give to, the movement, the space between things. It’s also the action made by Baiame, because sorrow, old age, and pain bend and yield. The bodies of the ones that had passed were buried with every joint bent, even if the bones had to be broken. I think it was a bend in humiliation, just like we bend at our knees and bow our heads. Bend, yield— baayanha."

"The bullet was the means of the physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation." Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o in Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature

The Yield rather dominated in literary awards in Australia last year, and deservedly so. A vitally important and cleverly constructed novel which centres around First-Nation experience, with, at its heart, the Wiradjuri language. The author has acknowledged the inspiration of both Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (particularly the quote above) and, more directly, via a mentorship, Wole Soyinka (https://www.rolex.org/rolex-mentor-protege/literature/travellers).

I really hope this book gets the attention in the UK and US from media and press that is deserves - and which the 2019 Miles Franklin Award winner Too Much Lip unfortunately did not (I'm equally culpable of overlooking that). See here for Tara June Winch in conversation with Melissa Lucashenko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG0P5S_E_20&t=234s). The Booker Prize in particular seems to have swung away from Australian and New Zealand authors towards the US - whether the fault of juries or publishers entries or both - but I would hope to see this feature on the 2021 shortlist, perhaps alongside the first new novel in almost 50 years from Soyinka.

"The old people, old people with mouths filled still with things they needed to teach.” “That’s sad,” I said, and Great-Aunty said, “You’ll tell them I told you and then they’ll never do things like that again.” I asked her, “Who do I tell?” and she said, “Just tell the truth and someone will hear it eventually.” I guess this is what I’m doing, finally."

4.5 stars rounded to 5 for the importance of this work.

Another novel with layers/stories: August's, Reverend Greenleaf's and Poppy Albert's. While overall there's nothing wrong with this, there are not enough bridges between the voices for me to judge them as a whole, so I will have to address each in turn.

August's story was boringggggggggggggg - the same old story that we heard too many times: my people vs them. The others taking the land from the aboriginal once again bla bla bla. While this is definitely an important issue, it is also a subject that's been overused. Maybe this story is not being told enough in Australia, what do I know..., but for the western reader it's beyond boring. If you really want to rehash the same old, same old, at least add something to the narrative. Enrich it for goodness sake! Plus the writing style didn't helped matters either...too harsh, with too many edges, I cannot say it was fitting for August who was mostly a lost little girl trying to find her sister and herself in the process.

Reverend Greenleaf's voice was all right, but he is your typical white saviour. Well in this case the liberal white seviour who is open to some extent, support the aboriginals and even preserve some of the cultural heritage. But still the white saviour nonetheless. At least he seems to understand his desire to do good wasn't good enough.

The Dictionary/Albert's story - this is the only part I've genuinely loved! Not only did I love to learn words from an almost lost language, but his explanations where gorgeous too. The little stories, either myths and legends of the Wiradjuri people, or just snippets of his own life made for a gorgeous read. This entries inspired me to search videos of people pronouncing the language and to learn more about the culture too. I would have loved for the entire book to be from Albert perspective, to learn more about the Wiradjuri people.

When I've requested this novel, seen the emphasis put on the author being a native herself, I hoped it's going to be a celebration of an aboriginal culture that I am not familiar with. I really looked forward to read about "the story of a people and a culture dispossessed" - to quote the synopsis - but we did not get enough of that, sadly...

Many thanks for the opportunity to read this novel.

I loved this book. It took me a couple of chapters to get into the rhythm of it but that was no problem. It is both lyrical and gritty, deeply sad at times, yet filled with hope. I wasn't sure that the story of Jedda added much to it but it didn't detract, so again, no problem.

Others have outlined the story so I will only add that I was entranced by all three strands and was engaged by all three protagonists. And I loved learning the words - though they are difficult to say!

A wonderful and important book.

Took me a little while to get into this, I’d selected it based on a list of books for fans of Jane Harper so was expecting a Harper or Hammer style crime novel and I rarely read blurbs as I don’t like too many preconceptions when I’m reading. So all my own fault that the first few chapters left me slightly puzzled. Once I’d got into it though I loved this multi layered look at the terrible harm done to indigenous Australians by the white settlers and the fight back to retain control of their language and beliefs. Beautiful story with lots of interesting detail on the local language and customs as August returns to the home she’d fled as a young teenager following the disappearance of her sister and becomes embroiled in a fight to keep out the tin miners who’ve taken their land. Interspersed with this is the dictionary of local words her grandfather was compiling prior to his death which slowly tells the story of the land and her people.

In the opening chapter of The Yield, Albert (Poppy) Gondiwindi tells us about dictionaries and, as the chapter closes, tells us how he is about to die from pancreatic cancer. After his death, his grand-daughter, August, returns home for his funeral. Home is an old mission, Prosperous House, in the small Australian town of Massacre Plains. The mission was originally established by the Reverend Greenleaf, a Lutheran priest.

These three people (Albert, August and Rev. Greenleaf) are our narrators through The Yield. Two of them do this by means of documents.

Firstly, Albert (modelled on the author’s own father and grandfather) left a dictionary after his death in which he was working to capture the words of the Wiradjuri language. The words he documents are accompanied by memories or explanations that gradually coalesce into personal history with political commentary (or, perhaps, a political history with personal commentary).

Interlaced with Albert’s dictionary, we read August’s story. This is best left for the reader to discover, but it involves a missing sister and, as we gradually learn, a plan from a big company to mine for tin on the land, forcing the residents to leave.

The third narrator is Rev. Greenleaf and we read a serialised version of a letter he wrote. This is the part of the book that it took me longest to settle to, but it is also the part that raises some of the most interesting moral questions. Greenleaf’s letter tells us about the history of the mission and documents some of the racist abuse suffered by the native population at the hands of the authorities and the surrounding white residents. We see him, also suffering abuse because of his German background (his letter was written during WWI), struggling to find a path that his conscience is happy with, wrestling with the balance between his Christian mission and implications of the native practices and beliefs being lost. It is for the reader to decide whether he is a good man or part of a longer tradition of bad men.

In the National Indigenous Times, Madelaine Dickie writes, "The Yield is sweeping in scope—while all action and history relates back to just 500 acres of land, Ms Winch deftly introduces the Freedom Ride, dog tags, massacres, mining, farming, sexual abuse, native title, the Stolen Generations, culture, and language."

Gradually, all three storylines come together. Some of that merging happens after you have finished the book and as you look back over the different events recorded.

The Wiradjuri language is at the heart of the book and the dictionary entries were by far my favourite parts. That said, the other parts of the book all pick up on the importance of language in their own ways. Greenleaf becomes concerned that the language will be lost, Albert works to document that language so that it will not be lost. And August’s story, with her reevaluation of her relationship with her sister and her battle to stop the mining, means she has to take stock of the importance of her home, where home means location and family but also tradition and, of course, language.

This is an engrossing book to read but it is elevated to 5 stars for me by the way it pulls together after you have finished it. It is capturing important topics and deserves the plaudits it is getting in Australia. It will be interesting to see how it fares in UK when it is published here in 2021.

I just read that this novel has won the 2020 Miles Franklin award and it is richly deserved. I am not surprised that this book has had a huge impact in Australia. Tara June Winch has written a complex Australian novel , structured by its three perspectives, and reflections on family, land, history, displacement (of Aboriginal communities) and of course of language. Retaining a language is such a key part of maintaining a culture, and removing a language (as Franco for example attempted to do with Basque and Catalan) is an attack on a people.

But this mustn't be seen as a didactic novel, it is interesting and absorbing. I recommend it.

A difficult but lyrical read that makes us confront the terrible wrongs, yet again, done by white settlers to indigenous people.. The dictionary passages by Albert are very beautiful, very revealing and the three narratives all weave together to give the full story.

This novel rather swept the Board in 2020 in Australian book prize shortlisting and wins – and is published in the UK in 2021.

The set-up of the novel is the aftermath of the death from pancreatic cancer of Albert “Poppy” Gondiwindi. Albert lived in his birth place – the small Australian town of Massacre Plains on the banks of the Murrumby River, with his wife Elsie at the Old Mission - – Prosperous House.

The mission was first established by Lutheran Priest – Rev Greenleaf (an anglicised version of his family name taken when his father moved from Prussia in the 1840s.

Albert’s prodigal grand-daughter August (who at 8 year’s old was taken with her 1 year old sister Jedda by Elsie and Albert to live with them after the arrest of August and Jedda’s neglectful parents for drug growing) returns to Prosperous House on hearing the news. She fled home at an older teenager after a cousin was convicted for arson – and ended up in England working in a Surrey village pub. August never really recovered from the unsolved disappearance of Jedda a year after they moved to Prosperous House. When August returns she finds that her grandmother faces imminent eviction. The local landowning family invited a mining company to survey their land – only for the mining firm to find not just a huge deposit of tin but that the family only had a 99 year (now expired) lease on the land. A group of environmental protesters claim to August that it is a sacred site, and her cousin (recently released from his jail sentence) says he had investigated Native Title – but no one can find any evidence of either artifacts or language to establish a claim. It is known that before his death Albert was researching local history and natural history and seemingly compiling a book – but it cannot be found.

The book is told in three different ways.

The first is a lengthy letter written by Rev Greenleaf to a British Ethnographer in 1915 – as he himself faces internment as an alien given his German background. The letter partly serves as a history of the Mission and the various abuses and horrors inflicted on the Mission and particularly its native inhabitants by the racist white population and authorities; partly as a piece of self-apologia and justification – for the Rev’s missionary role – and his belated and partial acceptance of the dangers of losing the natives practices and beliefs and (above all) their language.

This was probably my least favourite part of the book. It seemed the least original in contrivance (ie the letter form) and its themes; and partly I think as I was a lot more sympathetic to the Reverend’s mission than the author of the book clearly intends the reader to be.

The second is the present day tale of August. This part is the heart of the book – and in some ways the most conventional but I think had hidden depths. In particular, August’s return forces her to: confront past memories – both good and bad, particularly centering around her childhood with Jedda; reevaluate the evasion and fleeing that has characterised her adult life – and to rethink the importance of place, of language, of family and ultimately of belonging; restart many relationships held in stasis – for example with her jailed cousin, the son of the local landowners and with a Great Aunt with a very wayward long-dead son.

The third is simply outstanding – and is what I think has won the book so many awards. It is the book written by Albert – effectively a Z-A dictionary of English words, with their nearest equivalent in the
Wiradjuri language and with a discussion of the Wiradjuri concept. Albert was in regular contact with his Gondiwindi ancestors (the author has described him as a time traveller) so some of his entries have a magic realist element exploring the ancient history and tradition of the areas. Some are more explorations of the local flora and fauna and of the area and of Gondiwindi hunting and farming practices. Some are more spiritual in nature – exploring the different world views and approaches of captured in the Wiradjuri on contrast to the same words in English – and how these difference concepts capture how relationships developed, for example the title of the book.

yield, bend the feet, tread, as in walking, also long, tall—baayanha Yield itself is a funny word—yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land, the thing he’s waited for and gets to claim. A wheat yield. In my language it’s the things you give to, the movement, the space between things. It’s also the action made by Baiame, because sorrow, old age, and pain bend and yield. The bodies of the ones that had passed were buried with every joint bent, even if the bones had to be broken. I think it was a bend in humiliation, just like we bend at our knees and bow our heads. Bend, yield—baayanha.

But further the entries contain the story of August’s life and the keys to various unresolved issues.

The present-day August part then pulls these strands together – firstly in a climatic series of confrontations and then in what is effectively an epilogue.

Overall this is a fascinating book – the dictionary part elevating a good book into an outstanding one .

I will be very disappointed – but not surprised - if this book does not feature on UK prize lists this year such as the Booker and the Women’s Prize. Unfortunately both prizes seem to have become a little fixated on US novels and US authors (the Booker reaching something of a nadir in that respect this year) to the detriment of Antipodean novels – and I would hope to see that addresses this year. This book I would suggest is a far fresher and more interesting exploration of racism, language, cultural identity, colonialism etc than another identikit novel looking at slavery in America (or its legacy) or at post colonial India.

This is an interesting but not absorbing read. Its importance is the recording of events affecting Australian aborigines after the arrival of white settlers. Not all the white settlers were welcome as is evident from the separate story of a clergyman of German descent. The aborigines were in effect treated as slaves and this records some of their experiences. The book is interspersed with chapters exposing Aboriginal vocabulary which interrupts the storyline then there is almost a dictionary attached at the end. It is important that these matters be recorded.

Tara June Winch writes a complex, powerful, far reaching multigenerational Australian novel that relates harrowing Aboriginal history, structured by its three perspectives, and the connections between the past, present and future. Part of the Wiradjuri tribe, Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi lives at Prosperous House, at the all too appropriately named Massacre Plain, by the Murrumby River. Aware that death is coming for him, he embarks on a quest to document the Wiradjuri language before it is lost, words that are inextricably linked to stories, traditions, concepts, history, culture, philosophy and belief systems. This is no small thing, words are at the heart of a culture, giving it power, meaning, and a sense of identity, and its importance can partly be gauged by the no holds barred historical efforts to obliterate Aboriginal language and culture, forbidding its use and practice, underpinned by harsh punitive measures to ensure compliance, policies buttressed by the taking of children from families, the taken children now referred to as 'the stolen generation'.

On her grandfather Poppy's death, August Gondiwindi travels from Britain to his funeral, weighed down by a strong sense of guilt and shame, with thoughts of her older sister, Jedda. She finds her grandmother facing eviction, and a mining company intent on taking their land, riding roughshod over their rights, questioning their legitimacy and existence. Finding it hard to reconcile the past and the present, and driven by her need to know family history, and fight the mining company, she learns of Poppy's dictionary of words and searches for artefacts. Poppy's personal history is revealed, his childhood, including the aboriginal relationship with time and space, the spirit people, dreaming and songlines. Letters from 1915 by the Reverend Ferdinand Greenleaf document and acknowledge the unspeakable crimes committed against the Aboriginal population, so nightmarish that they have him questioning his faith.

The terrors, tragedies, grief, loss and trauma of the Aboriginal experience, the damning hidden Australian history, that includes land dispossession, enslavement, the sexual abuse, the hatred, the segregation, sacred land destructions, the exploitation, the stolen children, and the bare knuckle racism, has a much needed light shone upon it. However, there is light to be find in the hope and resilience of the Aborigine communities, the love, and the strength of family and community connections, highlighting the fight to expose the true history of Australia, so crucial in defining and determining a sense of identity, the critical importance of language, the past shaping the present and the future. This is a incredible heartbreaking, thought provoking, unforgettable, and necessary novel, history and the present masquerading as fiction, a must read that is both informative and educational. I hope that this brilliant novel receives the wide readership it so deserves. Many thanks to HarperCollins 4th Estate for an ARC.

Fabulous read, a great insight into the history and perspectives of another culture. Definitely one to watch in 2021!

Unfortunately at the moment this book is just going over my head! It's unfair to try and review it when I simply can't concentrate!