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Capricornia

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Capricornia

By: Xavier Herbert
Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
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About this listen

Spanning three generations‚ Capricornia tells the story of Australia's North. It is a story of whites and Aborigines and Asians‚ of chance relationships that can form bonds for life‚ of dispossession‚ murder and betrayal.

In 1904 the brothers Oscar and Mark Shillingsworth‚ clad in serge suits and bowler hats‚ arrive in Port Zodiac on the coast of Capricornia. They are clerks who have come from the South to join the Capricornian Government Service. Oscar prospers‚ and takes to his new life as a gentleman. Mark‚ however‚ is restless‚ and takes up with old Ned Krater‚ a trepang fisherman‚ who tells him tales of the sea and the islands‚ introduces him to drink‚ and boasts of his conquests of Aboriginal women - or 'Black Velvet'‚ as they are called. But it is Mark's son‚ Norman‚ whose struggles to find a place in the world, who embodies the complexities of Capricornia itself.

©1938 Xavier Herbert Estate 1985. Introduction copyright Mudrooroo 1990. The right of Xavier Herbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000. First published in Australia by Publicist Publishing Company, Sydney in. Second Australian edition published by Angus & Robertson. Subsequent Australian editions in either hardback or paperback were published by Angus & Robertson in 1939, 1941, 1943, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1956, 1959, 1963 (twice), 1969, 1970, Imprints Classics edition 1990, Angus & Robertson Classics edition 1996 and 2002. 2008 edition published by HarperCollins Publishers. (P)2009 Bolinda Publishing Historical Fiction Fiction Fishing
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Critic Reviews

"Big, powerful, irreverent...as timeless as the stars, as Australian as spinifex." (The Sydney Morning Herald)
"Capricornia will always be one of the greatest Australian novels, a defining work in the search for what it is, or was, to be Australian." (Australian Book Review)
"The best written and finest spirited novel that has ever come out of Australia." (HG Wells)

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Profile Image for Stephen Grocott

Epic and brilliant though sadly provocative

Although I didn’t agree with all of the theses, this magnificent book is a tour de force through some of Australia’s sad history of lost opportunities and sinful abasement of the Aboriginal population. That said, Australia was certainly no worse than other countries at the time and in many ways, better.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Australia’s treatment of its indigenous population was a disgrace.
And this book was magnificently narrated.

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.