The Yield
9781760143671
The Yield is a 2019 novel by Tara June Winch.[1]
She won the 2020 Miles Franklin Award for this book.[2] The book also won the 2020 Voss Literary Prize and the 2020 Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction.[3]
Synopsis
The novel follows the story of a young Wiradjuri woman returning home to Australia to attend a funeral, and finding her ancestral lands threatened by mining. The novel explores language and features a Wiradjuri language dictionary, as well as themes of colonialism, environmental issues and intergenerational trauma.[2]
Dedication
- Dedication: For my family.
- Epigraph: 'In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organised robbery?' - Saint Augustine
Critical reception
Writing in the Australian Book Review Ellen van Neerven commented: "The Yield is about regaining more than language. There are odes to Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu, with the pointed inclusions of bush food, bread, and fishing technology. There are only a few places where Winch’s delivery is too didactic, as when Nana tells August, the author speaking directly down the barrel to the reader, ‘we aren’t victims in this story anymore – don't you see that?'." And she concluded: "The Yield will appeal to many because of the way it unpacks complex themes in an accessible way. Australian rural novels are often humourless sketches with characters more like caricatures, grimly serious or full of despair. Refreshingly, the characters in The Yield are capable of communion, humour, and dignity despite tragedy, sexual violence, and substance abuse. In this deft novel of slow-moving water, they are borne by love, not pity."[4]
In The Guardian Erica Wagner noted: "In Wiradjuri the word for 'yield' is baayanha. But as the reader learns throughout this book, translation is far from simple. 'Yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land, the thing he's waited for and gets to claim,' Poppy Gondiwindi writes. In Wiradjuri, 'it's the things you give to, the movement, the space between things'. This is a novel full of the spaces in between...This is a complex, satisfying book, both story and testimony. The Yield works to reclaim a history that never should have been lost in the first place."[5]
Publishing history
After the novel's initial publication by Hamish Hamilton in Australia in 2019,[6] the book was reprinted as follows:
The novel was also translated into French in 2020,[9] Dutch in 2021,[1] German in 2022,[10] and Polish in 2023.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d "Austlit — The Yield by Tara June Winch". Austlit. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- ^ a b "Miles Franklin won by Wiradjuri author Tara June Winch for novel of family, history and language". www.abc.net.au. 16 July 2020. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
- ^ "Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2020 winners announced". Books+Publishing. 10 December 2020. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
- ^ ""The Yield by Tara June Winch by Ellen van Neerven"". Australian Book Review, August 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- ^ ""The Yield by Tara June Winch review – reclaiming Australia's Indigenous voices"". The Guardian, 23 January 2021. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- ^ "The Yield (Hamish Hamilton)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- ^ "The Yield (HarperVia)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- ^ "The Yield (Penguin)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- ^ "The Yield (Gaïa)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- ^ "The Yield (Haymon Verlag)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- v
- t
- e
- Voss by Patrick White (1957)
- To the Islands by Randolph Stow (1958)
- The Big Fellow by Vance Palmer (1959)
- The Irishman by Elizabeth O'Conner (1960)
- Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White (1961)
- The Well Dressed Explorer by Thea Astley (1962)
- The Cupboard Under the Stairs by George Turner (1962)
- Careful, He Might Hear You by Sumner Locke Elliott (1963)
- My Brother Jack by George Johnston (1964)
- The Slow Natives by Thea Astley (1965)
- Trap by Peter Mathers (1966)
- Bring Larks and Heroes by Thomas Keneally (1967)
- Three Cheers for the Paraclete by Thomas Keneally (1968)
- Clean Straw for Nothing by George Johnston (1969)
- A Horse of Air by Dal Stivens (1970)
- The Unknown Industrial Prisoner by David Ireland (1971)
- The Acolyte by Thea Astley (1972)
- No award (1973)
- The Mango Tree by Ronald McKie (1974)
- Poor Fellow My Country by Xavier Herbert (1976)
- The Glass Canoe by David Ireland (1977)
- Swords and Crowns and Rings by Ruth Park (1978)
- A Woman of the Future by David Ireland (1979)
- The Impersonators by Jessica Anderson (1980)
- Bliss by Peter Carey (1981)
- Just Relations by Rodney Hall (1982)
- No award (1983)
- Shallows by Tim Winton (1984)
- The Doubleman by Christopher Koch (1985)
- The Well by Elizabeth Jolley (1986)
- Dancing on Coral by Glenda Adams (1987)
- No award (1988)
- Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (1989)
- Oceana Fine by Tom Flood (1990)
- The Great World by David Malouf (1991)
- Cloudstreet by Tim Winton (1992)
- The Ancestor Game by Alex Miller (1993)
- The Grisly Wife by Rodney Hall (1994)
- The Hand That Signed the Paper by Helen Darville (1995)
- Highways to a War by Christopher Koch (1996)
- The Glade Within the Grove by David Foster (1997)
- Jack Maggs by Peter Carey (1998)
- Eucalyptus by Murray Bail (1999)
- Drylands by Thea Astley (2000)
- Benang by Kim Scott (2000)
- Dark Palace by Frank Moorhouse (2001)
- Dirt Music by Tim Winton (2002)
- Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller (2003)
- The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard (2004)
- The White Earth by Andrew McGahan (2005)
- The Ballad of Desmond Kale by Roger McDonald (2006)
- Carpentaria by Alexis Wright (2007)
- The Time We Have Taken by Steven Carroll (2008)
- Breath by Tim Winton (2009)
- Truth by Peter Temple (2010)
- That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott (2011)
- All That I Am by Anna Funder (2012)
- Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser (2013)
- All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld (2014)
- The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna (2015)
- Black Rock White City by A. S. Patrić (2016)
- Extinctions by Josephine Wilson (2017)
- The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser (2018)
- Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko (2019)
- The Yield by Tara June Winch (2020)
- The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey (2021)
- Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down (2022)
- Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran (2023)