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Two Old Men Dying

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Two Old Men Dying

By: Tom Keneally
Narrated by: Paul English
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About this listen

In perhaps his boldest and most personal novel, Tom Keneally explores the journeys of modern Australians alongside the imagined story of ancient Learned Man, whose remains were discovered in Western NSW decades ago.

Learned Man is the child of humankind as we know it, of those who are thought to have travelled from the Rift Valley in Africa and to ancient Australia.

Shelby Apple is an acclaimed documentary maker. After making films about Learned Man’s discovery, in Vietnam and back home in the Northern Territory, Shelby turns his sights on Eritrea. He thinks this embattled society might represent a new cognitive leap, one that will reconcile our tenderness and our savagery, our reason and our emotions.

Shelby sees the world through the lens of his camera, Learned Man through the lens of his responsibility under law. Both men are well aware that their landscape comes to them from elders and ancestors. They are each willing to die and, in a sense, kill for their secret crafts.

Two Old Men Dying is an exquisite exploration of community and country, love and mortality.

©2018 Tom Keneally (P)2019 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Africa
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Different perspectives in this book and the historical context are food for thought. Although I would have liked more of an introduction about the author and how he navigated the issues of being a non-Indigenous author writing from an Indigenous perspective. Particularly as the narrator read the chapters of the perspective of the Indigenous man in the voice of a non-Indigenous man that he is. This audiobook would be wonderful if these chapters were read by an Indigenous man.

Different perspectives

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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.