“The dictionary”, Poppy says, “is not just words – there are little stories in those pages too.” There sure are. It’s told through the words in his dictionary, starting at the end of the alphabet, “a nod to the backwards whitefella world I grew up in”. He is dying but is also a time-traveller, so, Winch said, his story has elements of magical realism.

Poppy Albert Gondiwindi, dictionary writer, first person narrator.It has three, roughly alternating, narrative strands, each quite different in style but each reflecting or enhancing the other two. “that unhandsome truth”īut my, what a shape it takes. So, she found her 500 acres on the Murrumbidgee, created fictional places – the Murrumby River, and the towns, Massacre Plains and Broken – and her novel started to take shape. She started with too broad a canvas, until her mentor, Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, encouraged her to focus on 500 acres of land, telling her she could tell her story through that lens. Discovering language was, she said, transformative, but turning her passion into a book proved tricky. It was inspired by a short course Winch did in Wiradjuri language run by Uncle Stan Grant Sr (father of Stan Grant whom I’ve reviewed here a couple of times). I wrote about The yield’s genesis last year, but will repeat it here. It makes a powerful plea for Indigenous agency and culture. Ten years in the making, The yield could be described as her “passion project”. Tara June Winch’s novel, The yield, follows her impressive – and David Unaipon award-winning – debut novel Swallow the air (my review).

Tara winch the yield