Dispossessed

It is 1988, the year of celebrations.

But not everyone feels invited. During the last weeks before eviction from their land, a farming family is dispossessed more than once.

Against the myth of idyllic rural life, Dispossessed gives another vision. Here is a stark account of this family losing their identity, as well as the more familiar images from the bush: the birth and death of animals, the rhythms of working the land, and the excesses of nature.

In this vivid novella, written in blank verse, Philip Hodgins finds powerful metaphors for Australia’s recent past.

“Dispossessed is told in the laconic and brutally unillusioned style of a rural anecdote, but in its form and its perceptions it shows a high level of sophistication… (It) is about crudity, blunted feelings, burned-out emotions-things inseparable, it is suggested, from the way of life shown—but the subject is treated with an extraordinary artistic tact and discrimination.” — ROBERT GRAY