Win a milestone for indigenous fiction

KIM Scott was the first indigenous author to win the Miles Franklin when he shared the 2000 prize for his first novel, Benang, with the late Thea Astley. Last night he went a step further and won Australia's most significant prize for literary fiction in his own right for his second novel, That Deadman Dance.
The $50,000 prize, which will provide a significant fillip to book sales, was presented at the State Library of Victoria - the first time organisers have held the ceremony away from its traditional Sydney home.
Scott pipped two other shortlisted books, When Colts Ran, by former winner Roger McDonald, and Bereft, the second novel by Age journalist Chris Womersley.

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Kim Scott has pipped two other men to win Australia's most significant prize for literary fiction. Photo: Pat Scala

Scott said he hoped he was wiser and cooler than when he previously won the prize. But he baulked at one of the judges' descriptions of That Deadman Dance as a ''post-reconciliation novel''.
''I feel a trifle uncomfortable with that,'' he said. ''I like the sentiments because they're saying I'm a clever bugger, but we are a long way from being a post-reconciliation society.''
He said he hoped winning the Miles Franklin would help to shine a spotlight on some of the projects to reclaim regional indigenous language.
This year's Miles Franklin provoked controversy after the nine-book long list was cut to only three, all written by male novelists. It is the second time in three years the judges have produced an all-male shortlist.
Scott said while he had been the first indigenous writer to win, it was Alexis Wright - an indigenous woman - who had been the real trailblazer, winning the Miles Franklin with Carpentaria in 2006.
He thought there was a long way to go to weld what was being called indigenous literature with Australian literature.
That Deadman Dance tells of the encounters between the Noongar people in south-west Australia, the early settlers and visiting American whalers. Using the central figure of Bobby Wabalanginy, who adapts a military drill he has observed to create the deadman dance that becomes a symbol of cross-cultural borrowings, it follows the friendly, generous relations between the indigenous population and the British that eventually gives way to something less inspiring and darker.
The judges said That Deadman Dance was powerful, innovative fiction that shifted the sense of what a historical novel could achieve. It ''is alive in the spaces between these two worlds as they collide and collaborate. It tells the story of the rapid destruction of the Noongar people and their traditions. At the same time, there is the enchanting possibility of the birth of a new world in the strange song, dance, ceremony and language that are produced by these encounters of very different people.''
Scott, son of a Noongar father and white mother, is an associate professor at Curtin University's Centre for International Health and is involved in regenerating the Noongar language. He sees it as a ''new source for learning about who we are and our history''.