Julie Janson
Madukka the River Serpent
University of Western Australia Publishing, 2022
Aunty June is the proud owner of a TAFE certificate III in Investigative Services. It took her thirty hours to complete online. Now, she has set up her own private investigation service: Yanakirri Investigative Services – Confidentiality Guaranteed.
When environmental activist, Thommo, suddenly goes missing and the police ignore the case Aunty June takes it upon herself to uncover the secrets surrounding her nephew, Thommo’s, disappearance. Corruption, commercial cotton farmers, bikies, racism, water theft, and unreliable local police – Aunty June is really up against it. Lies and corruption are hiding the truth from reaching the surface. And the Darling River, the sacred Barka is running out of water. Aunty June may be out of her depth, but nothing will stop her fighting for her people and her land.
Madukka The River Serpent is a striking novel about family and resistance from Australian Darug Burruberongal writer and playwright Julie Janson.
“Julie Janson’s crime thriller does so much more than solve a murder: it tackles water rights, Aboriginal disadvantage, racism, environmental vandalism and massacres as they appear in the everyday experience and conversations of First Nations people. Raw, visceral, rude and tough - it’s the new perspective on Australian noir that we’ve been waiting for.”
About the Author
Julie Janson's career as a playwright began when she wrote and directed plays in remote Australian Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. She is now a novelist and award-winning poet. Julie is a Burruberongal woman of Darug Aboriginal Nation. She is co-recipient of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize, 2016 and winner of the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, 2019.
