That Deadman Dance

Kim Scott

Jan 2012 · Bolinda · Narrated by Humphrey Bower

About this audiobook

In playful, musical prose, this audiobook explores the early contact between the Aboriginal Noongar people and the first European settlers, in the area what is now Albany, Western Australia. The novel's hero is a young Noongar man named Bobby Wabalanginy. Clever, resourceful and eager to please, Bobby befriends the new arrivals, joining them hunting whales, tilling the land, exploring the hinterland and establishing the fledgling colony. He is even welcomed into a prosperous local white family where he falls for the daughter, Christine, a beautiful young woman who sees no harm in a liaison with a native. But slowly – by design and by accident – things begin to change. Not everyone is happy with how the colony is developing. Stock mysteriously start to disappear, crops are destroyed, there are ‘accidents’ and injuries on both sides. As the Europeans impose ever stricter rules and regulations in order to keep the peace, Bobby's Elders decide they must respond in kind. A friend to everyone, Bobby is forced to take sides: he must choose between the old world and the new, his ancestors and his new friends. Inexorably, he is drawn into a series of events that will forever change not just the colony but the future of Australia ...

About the author

Kim Scott is a multi-award winning Noongar author from Western Australia. He began writing for publication when he became an English teacher and has had poetry and short stories published in a number of anthologies. Kim’s Benang was the first novel by an Indigenous writer to win the Miles Franklin Award, and in 2011, he won both the Miles Franklin and the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal with That Deadman Dance. In 2012, he was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and also named Western Australian of the Year. Scott's novel Taboo won both the Indigenous Writers' Prize and the Book of the Year in the 2018 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.

Humphrey Bower is a gifted and versatile actor. Since obtaining a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature at Oxford University, he has worked extensively in theatre, television and audiobook narration. Humphrey won the prestigious Audie Award (US) for his performance of The Family Frying Pan by Bryce Courtenay, and was shortlisted for an Audie Award for his performances of Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan and Brother Fish by Bryce Courtenay. Humphrey's sensitive and intelligent readings are highly regarded and he is well-known for his capacity to perform a variety of accents.