In
her latest novel, Sue Woolfe leads us into an outback Aboriginal community, on
a captivating journey of discovery about how Australia’s original people have
responded to the world that has been imposed on them and to the behaviour and
motivations of the white people who work among them today.
We
see this world through the eyes of Kate, a thirty-something white student
linguist who has struggled for a sense of her own identity her entire life
because of the circumstances and the forceful and beguiling personalities
imposed upon her as a young girl. She is an outsider searching for the
Aboriginal woman who can reveal to her the oldest song in the world.
Lyrical
and brave, The Oldest Song in the World explores universal ideas of
home, belonging and family with sensitivity and gentle humour. And it demonstrates that Sue Woolfe is one of Australia’s leading living writers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sue Woolfe is the author of three novels, including the acclaimed
best-selling, internationally translated Leaning Towards Infinity, which
won the Christina Stead Award, the Asia Pacific Region section of the
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was shortlisted for the Tip Tree prize in the
US. Her first novel, Painted Woman was also nominated for the
Commonwealth Prize. She has adapted both novels for ABC radio, for the
professional stage, and Leaning Towards Infinity has been optioned for a
film in the US. Her third novel, The Secret Cure, is currently being adapted
for an opera. Sue Woolfe teaches Creative Writing at Sydney University, and is
the author of The Mystery of the Cleaning Lady: a Novelist looks at
Neuroscience and Creativity (2007) and (with Kate Grenville) Making
Stories: How Ten Australian Novels Were Written (1991).
Sue Woolfe will be
participating in the Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival, 31 August – 2
September 2012
Imprint: 4th Estate
Publication date: 6 July 2012
rrp: NZ $34.99
E-Book — AVAILABLE
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