I am indebted to many people who offered encouragement and support, including my former colleagues at RMIT, and especially Antoni Jach. Thank you most sincerely to Evelyn Juers and Alice Grundy for reading the final manuscript and offering invaluable feedback; and to Darren Gilbert for permission to use his wonderful image of the swan on the cover of this book.
I am very grateful for the support of Professor Wayne McKenna, the University of Western Sydney, and Professor Anthony Uhlmann and all of my colleagues in the Writing and Society Research Centre at the university.
Ivor Indyk, my publisher, editor and critic knows the work that went into this book. Thank you.
Thank you to my husband Toly for our trips to Lake Wendoree, and for many thoughtful references you found from the beginning of a journey that continued through many parts of the world.
Of course, all of those swans, and also our kelpies Jessie then Ruby, and our cats Pushkin then Luna, for the company.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
‘An indigenous Australian literary vernacular of consummate skill that is not afraid to relax into poetic reverie but can, and does, snap taut at a moment’s notice.’
MICHELE GROSSMAN, Australian
‘Wright’s narrative voice is remarkable, shifting like a cyclone from full velocity to poetic calm. It’s got the feel of the voices you hear up north: the rapidfire delivery, the long digressions, the meandering storyline and, above all, the wicked humour.’
SALLY BLAKENEY, Bulletin
‘Wright breaks all the rules of grammar and syntax to sweep us along on a great torrent of language that thrills and amazes with its inventiveness and humour and with the sheer power of its storytelling. It’s brutal and confronting and it’s sad and funny at the same time.’
LIAM DAVISON, Sydney Morning Herald
‘This is not myth as Western culture understands it: not an imagined dimension, but a literal if incorporeal one that bisects and animates the physical world; it makes for marvellous theatre.’
ELIZABETH LOWRY, London Review of Books
The Swan Book Page 34