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Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling

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Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling

Written by: Larissa Behrendt
Narrated by: Ella Ferris
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About this listen

Aboriginal lawyer, writer and filmmaker Larissa Behrendt has long been fascinated by the story of Eliza Fraser, who was purportedly captured by the Butchulla people after she was shipwrecked on their island off the Queensland coast in 1836. In this deeply personal audiobook, Behrendt uses Eliza's tale as a starting point to interrogate how Aboriginal people – and indigenous people of other countries – have been portrayed in their colonisers' stories.

Exploring works as diverse as Robinson Crusoe and Coonardoo, Behrendt looks at the stereotypes embedded in these accounts, including the assumption of cannibalism and the myth of the noble savage. Ultimately, Finding Eliza shows how these stories not only reflect the values of their storytellers but also reinforce those values – and how, in Australia, this has contributed to a complex racial divide.

2018, NSW Premier's Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize, Short-listed

©2016 Larissa Behrendt. Introduction copyright Fiona Foley 2024. (P)2025 Bolinda Publishing Indigenous Studies Social Sciences Specific Demographics World Literature

Critic Reviews

'Behrendt’s analytical legal skills, her experience and talent as a writer and the visual imagination developed by filmmaking are all deployed to enhance a powerful and learned argument.' (The Weekend Australian)
'A free-flowing essay in historical, legal and cultural criticism, Finding Eliza will be of interest to anyone who feels Aboriginal reconciliation is as much an effort of a curious and empathetic imagination as it is a practical objective.’ (The Saturday Age)
'The beauty of indigenous academic and former lawyer Larissa Behrendt’s work is her rational erudition in considering the fate of Aboriginal women since 1788.' (The Daily Telegraph)
'If I were teaching students about the power of stories and the need to read against the grain, I would grasp this book with both hands.' (Overland)
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