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	Fritz Agency Christian Dittus
Original language
English
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Fiction & Related items

PARIS SAVAGES

Katherine Johnson

Fraser Island, 1882. The population of the Badtjala people is in sharp decline following a run of brutal massacres. When German scientist Louis Mueller offers to sail three Badtjala people Bonny, Jurano and Dorondera to Europe to perform to huge crowds, the proud and headstrong Bonny agrees, hoping to bring his people's plight to the Queen of England.

Accompanied by Muellers bright, grieving daughter, Hilda, the group begins their journey to belle-époque Europe to perform in Hamburg, Berlin, Paris and eventually London. While crowds in Europe are enthusiastic to see the unique dances, singing, fights and pole climbing from the oldest culture in the world, the attention is relentless, and the fascination of scientists intrusive. When disaster strikes, Bonny must find a way to return home.

A story of love, bravery, culture, and the fight against injustice, Paris Savages brings a little-known part of history to blazing life.

Katherine Johnson is the author of three previous novels: Pescador's Wake (Fourth Estate, 2009), The Better Son (Ventura Press, 2016) and Matryoshka (Ventura Press, 2018). Her manuscripts have won Varuna Awards and Tasmanian Premier's Literary Prizes. The Better Son was longlisted for both the Indie Book Awards and the Tasmania Book Prize. Katherine holds both arts and science degrees, has worked as a science journalist, and published feature articles for magazines including Good Weekend. Katherine lives in Tasmania with her husband and two children. She recently completed a PhD, which forms the basis of her latest novel, Paris Savages.

Available products
Book Published 2019-10-01 by Ventura Press

Comments

UK: Allison and Busby; Italy: Jimenez Edizioni;

"A masterful work; fully realised and richly embroidered. Johnson is a novelist of ferocious elegance and unusual sensitivity." Alice Nelson

"Gripping and powerful. Paris Savages is an intimate journey into the late 19th century pseudo-science of race, and the immensely moving courage of the indigenous performers who toured Europe." Dr Peter Cochrane, novelist and winner of Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History

"Paris Savages raises so many issues it is blinding in its scope. While much of the action is shocking, the story is tempered by beautiful sub-themes: inter-racial love, loss of innocence, and the challenges of displacement. But soaring above all of this is a spiritual thread that weaves in and out of the narrative. This is compelling reading. Highly recommended."

"This is a feat of imagination cast back in time and across the seas: first to K'Gari (Fraser Island) in the 1880s, transport by ship across the Pacific, then belle-èpoque Europe; into the mind of German girl Hilda, and her account of three Badtjala travellers, all of them seeking location in a place far from home. It is a story of sympathies and slippages, showing and telling, transport and transformation. Johnson's delicacy of comprehension and tenderness of motive offer a way past simplistic moralising into a human understanding of good intentions and intentional injury, the dignity of survival and the persistence of history. It's a vivid, thoughtful telling of a tale little known and deeply affecting." Kate Holden

Paris Savages is beautiful, heartbreaking and utterly sublime My favourite book of the year Read more...