Cloudstreet

They were the first to publish Helen Garner.

Tim Winton, they published Cloud Street, Kaz Cooke, all people that are now so much a part of our Australian cultural landscape.

They are part of our collective identity, if you can say that we have any.

And speaking of that, they were also behind publishing Puberty Blues, which was basically sent as a whole bunch of handwritten notes.

Yeah, they study it in school.

It's the new Cloud Street.

Yeah.

If we could get Tim Winton interested, I'd love Tim Winton to write it.

Amen.

The prologue of Tim Winton's Cloud Street gives the book a particular sort of focus.

You get this, in the prologue, this kind of creative, ambiguous story, this glimpse of a boy and a family and a picnic, and you're not really sure what's going on or how it got there, but it's a flash forward.

It's a glimpse of the end.

This seems like a real change of heart.

from the Nebuchadnezzar that we've been getting to know.

But this, like the prologue of Cloud Street, is a flash forward.

It's a glimpse of the end.

I've been going back through my own bookshelves to rediscover some great Australian novels and convincing the authors of those novels to come back and talk to me about them.

So far, I've brought you Tim Winton talking about Cloud Street, Helen Garner talking about Monkey Grip.

You can find both of those conversations on ABC Listen if you haven't heard them already.

Today, it's Noongar writer Kim Scott and his Miles Franklin winner, Banung.