Black Sheep

This impassioned book - part quest, part travel book - by a novelist and writer widely published in the US and Europe - is based on two interlocking personal histories set on Australia's tropical Gulf of Carpentaria - border-line country seldom explored in writing. A quest for two very different men: the legendary Roger Jose, an itinerant European who lived in a remote Aboriginal community for half a century, in an upside down water tank with his beloved Aboriginal wife, reading literature and evolving his own radical bush philosophy. The police note on him was 'living blackfellow'. (For the author this is a personal quest, since Roger Jose claimed to be a long-lost member of his family.) Two hundred miles away one of the most degraded Aboriginal communities in Australia has been fighting for its rights. Their charismatic leader is Murrandoo Yanner, a young man committed to self-determination for his people and control over their vast traditional territory, with its rich natural resources. This highly original book is the response of a contemporary writer to his own heritage.