Strangelands is a multi‑generational literary fiction novel set on Ngiyampaa Country, following the Yawatyal‑Harris family as they move through grief, kinship, silence, and the spiritual undercurrents that shape their lives. The story spans decades and perspectives, weaving together the quiet violences of assimilation, the weight of inherited memory, and the very real contemporary impacts of trauma that still shape families today. At its core, it shows that even in the midst of all this, Country keeps calling us back – steady, patient, waiting for us to hear it again.
At its heart, Strangelands is about the fractures that run through families – and the old, patient forces that help stitch them back together. It explores the tension between what is spoken and what is carried, the way trauma echoes across generations, and the deep cultural intelligence that sits inside everyday moments. The novel moves between the living and the spiritual, the seen and the felt, without ever leaving the grounded reality of community, Country, and responsibility.
The central character, Kennedy Harris, is a woman many will recognise – a single mother who has survived hardship, raised her children with grit, sacrifice, and who has built a life through sheer determination. In her fifties, she begins to reckon with the parts of herself she has set aside, and the choices she must now make to reclaim her own path. Her journey reflects a truth many women face: that healing, self-possession, and clarity often arrive later in life, when we finally have the courage to look inward.
The novel also shines a light on families who struggle to speak openly about trauma and why breaking that silence matters. It asks readers to consider the humanity of parents, the burdens they carried, and the empathy owed to them as family members mature and grow into their own understanding.
But beneath all of this, for me, sat a deeper narrative – a quiet, powerful “what if”: What if nothing had been stolen. What if no woman had been broken. What if our culture had been left whole.
Strangelands is the doorway into that possibility. It imagines the world our families might have lived in if the fractures had never been forced upon us – and the world we are still capable of building or have.
On shelves June 2027 published by Bundyi Publishing (an imprint of Simon & Schuster & Publisher at large, Dr Anita Heiss)
