The book is a love story, a legal lesson, a comment on the contemporary lifestyles and responsibilities of young, educated Indigenous people today, and a treasure-trove of eloquent and elegant writing. I personally think Butterfly Song is the great Australian novel, because it encompasses so much of this country’s spirit and will touch so many Australian hearts that it couldn’t be anything but. I realise now that Terri was a huge inspiration to me to get more stories like those of her narrator Tarena Shaw on the page, although of course this novel is ‘literary’ and my novels are categorised in ‘chick lit’ or ‘choc lit’. I saw myself in Terri’s work, and all the women I’d been to university with together. My Friday Fave is Terri Janke’s Butterfly Song because this novel was the first time that I saw in Australian literature Indigenous women in an urban setting in contemporary Australia women with career aspirations and love lives and commitment to community. This week’s Friday Fave comes from writer Anita Heiss: …In which I invite someone bookish to share one of their all-time favourite works of fiction and why it’s so special to them. Friday Faves: Butterfly Song by Terri Janke
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