A thoughtful, evocative and deeply connected work, Undersong is a book to be read in this moment, as Australia continues its complex journey towards Reconciliation; Burden sets her reader a challenge to pause, listen and open themselves to Country. Celebrating the stories of Tasmanian landscapes and environments, through the journey of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women across time, Undersong is a Tasmanian journey into Country.
Acclaimed author, journalist and broadcaster, Hilary Burden, a Tasmanian born in England who has lived and worked across the globe and whose formative career was spent in the glossy newsrooms of Sydney and London, could easily be mistaken for an unlikely creator of the gentle yet powerful exploration of Country that is Undersong.
The best-selling author of A Story of Seven Summers (Allen & Unwin, 2012) has in fact been leaning closer to nature, to wild places for nearly two decades now.
Burden’s manuscript was rejected by several mainstream publishers for fear of it being labelled cultural appropriation. Yet, she persisted. Burden’s newest work therefore becomes an act of quiet, gentle rebellion in the face of an unconscious handwringing that inhibits non-Indigenous Australians from exploring their own journey towards connection to Country, their own role in decolonisation.
Aunty Patsy Cameron AO writes of this phenomenon in the Foreword: “For me it is deeply concerning that non-Aboriginal people feel a sense of apprehension about what home means to them and their place in it. I believe Country speaks to everyone in different ways…This book is not about appropriation of Aboriginal stories. It is about celebrating the story of Tasmania’s landscapes and environments”.
Burden’s book expertly explores the relationship to Country of several women of Tasmania, including Burden herself, Aunty Patsy Cameron and historical figures Louisa Anne Meredith and Marianne North, among others. Separated by time but not place, the women in this beautifully constructed, non-linear, narrative non-fiction work all share a deep connection to the island at the bottom of the world.
“This personal journey into Country was an opportunity to arrive again, not on an empty shore. An attempt, while sifting through the wreckage of British first arrival, to find the good things that happened. There is space for these good things to shine through, one where beauty and rarity dwell.”
Undersong encourages us to pause and listen while confronting the difficult terrain that is living on unceded lands here in Australia.
