The Settlement

A career-defining masterpiece by internationally award-winning Australian storyteller Jock Serong The settlement is on a windswept island at the edge of Van Diemen's Land. The people gathered there, taken from their country, are sick and consumed by grief. The Commandant attends their deathbeds, steals what little they have and wrangles forces that resist his will-including the chief, their leader. Things look even worse for the orphans Whelk and Pipi, locked in fear of the old man they know as the Catechist, who has both the power and the burning desire to hurt them. They may have an ally in the Storekeeper who is conscience-stricken and searching for kindness. But will his good intentions be enough to save them?

About the Author :
Jock Serong's novels have received the ARA Historical Novel Prize, the Colin Roderick Award, the Ned Kelly Award for First Fiction and, internationally, the inaugural Staunch Prize (UK) and the Historia Award for Historical Crime Fiction (France). He lives with his family on Victoria's far west coast.

Review :
`The Settlement is a shocking but perversely beautiful evocation of the endurance and dignity of Aboriginal resistance to the sadism of the colony’s God and guns. Its gripping plot, extraordinary Black and white characters, and elegant prose will haunt you long after the last page.' 'There is some kind of magic in the way Jock Serong conjures places and times and people.' 'Serong is among many writers, including Tony Birch, Bruce Pascoe and Kate Grenville, looking closer at the history of colonisation and the narratives that have been handed down as authorised versions, but that need much closer scrutiny.' ‘Serong’s prose is evocative, his dialogue convincing.’ ‘Grips from the first page. It's unsentimental, truthful and profound – all in a milieu effortlessly imagined.’ ‘An extraordinarily vivid imagining of one of the most significant encounters in Australian history.’ ‘Serong's finest work, and a story Australians should hear.’ ‘[The Settlement is] compelling to read, and also powered by Serong's descriptive, muscular prose…Reckoning comes in blazing moments of truth-telling, where the reality of this colonising project cannot be denied…This is a book that doesn’t let us readers off the hook—nor should it.’ Jackie Tang, ‘[Jock Serong] is undertaking important work of reckoning with Australia’s troubled history. [The Settlement] is part of that reckoning – an absolute must read.’ ‘[A] darkly poignant, sadly true and painfully engaging story that rarely, if ever, makes it into Australian history books.’ 'Devastating…[Serong] animates the benighted settlement through pungent prose and uncanny summoning of place…A novel of empathy and intelligence.’ 'Traces of Charles Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, and Patrick White thread through his prose, which is often genre-based – the agile plotting and unexpected metaphor of Raymond Chandler is apparent here…The Settlement is deeply connected to history and prior literature.’ ‘Compelling…powerful and evocative…[The Settlement] gives you thorough understanding of the power wielded by the early colonists, and the choices forced on those who didn’t have it.’

‘This is a book that must be read, from an author whose writing has reached new heights.’