Video transcript
NSW Premier's Reading Challenge 2024 – SWF author interview (secondary) – 02. Graham Akhurst

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TRACEY: My name is Tracey from Bankstown Girls High School. I'm here today on Dharug land at Parramatta Riverside Theatre as part of Sydney Writers' Festival Secondary Schools Day, and I'm so excited to be interviewing Graham Akhurst for the Premier's Reading Challenge. Hi, Graham.

GRAHAM AKHURST: Hello. Thanks for having me, Tracey.

TRACEY: Yeah, thank you. How are you?

GRAHAM AKHURST: Good, yeah. I'm really enjoying the Sydney Writers' Festival and the education days.

TRACEY: Yeah, me too. So first question, your book, 'Borderland' deals with themes relating to identity and race. It is written very visually and describes Jono's story as he comes into terms with who he is. As an Indigenous person yourself, were there any moments of your life reflected in the story?

GRAHAM AKHURST: Yeah, much of my personal experience goes into 'Borderland'. I grew up as an Indigenous young man in Meanjin, in Brisbane. I went to a private boys school called Nudgee College, which-- and I use those experiences, and they directly reflect to the fictional St. Lucia private in the novel. I also went to an Aboriginal performing arts school after I graduated ACPA, and I've also rendered that in the text.

And I also got the gig to do the mining documentary that is part of the last part of the novel. So I think I was 23-- as a 23-year-old young man I flew out to the Western Queensland desert and was filming this documentary about expedited procedures, which would go out to rural Indigenous communities so they were more informed about their rights for the exploration of country and making sure that mining companies weren't destroying cultural heritage sites.

TRACEY: Ah, so Jono and Jenny's stories, it's very similar to yours?

GRAHAM AKHURST: Yeah, it's very much aligned with my own journey towards my Indigenous heritage and identity.

TRACEY: Yeah, and that's really lovely, how the 2 stories are very closely connected. So the way you wrote Jono is really descriptive. It truly shows his emotion and his thoughts, how he began as feeling like an outsider amongst people like him. Then he ended as a character confident in his culture. So what would you say to other young Indigenous people in Australia who struggle to come to terms with their identity?

GRAHAM AKHURST: I think the journey towards-- in identity development, particularly for our young people, everyone's on a different part of that journey. Some people have more connection to community, their Indigenous community. They know where they're from. They are being taught by their Elders, while others, and particularly in the city, urban Indigenous young people might have that stronger disconnect.

So everyone's going on a different part of-- is on a different part of that journey towards their strong Indigenous identity. And I think any advice that I would give would be to continue searching, growing, learning as you go along and connecting those dots to find out where your place is in the world. And I think knowing that is such a strong component of Indigenous peoples' ontologies. Connecting to place is such an important part. So don't be afraid to continue on that journey, ask a lot of questions, and really look for your place in the world, because it's such an important part of our Indigenous identities.

TRACEY: Yeah, that's a really inspiring answer. I think it really help the young Indigenous people who might feel alone in Australia. Yeah, so thank you for your answer. I love the incorporation of the spirits of the dreaming and the connectivity between the land in order to describe how Indigenous young adults may have trouble connecting with their cultural background. So growing up, what was your favourite dreaming story and one that resonated with you?

GRAHAM AKHURST: Yeah, right. Jeez, I don't know. I couldn't really pick one favourite one. As I was growing up, my mum would read us many picture books and dreaming stories from all different Mobs around the country, the rainbow serpent, these sorts of things. And there's some lovely Indigenous picture books that showcase our rich cosmology of Indigenous Australia.

But I think, for me, it was really interesting to create one, a fictional one, and we see that within the novel with Wudun, and working with Gunggari Elders to make sure that I was not appropriating their stories, but I was creating a fictional dreaming story that was aligned enough with their story so that it was plausible but was not appropriative.

So I think a big part of my journey in writing this novel was making sure that I'd spoken a lot with the Gunggari Elders, and particularly Uncle Ray Stanley, who I'll be forever grateful for because he must have read 8 versions of this book and disseminated it to all the other Elders in the Gunggari community, yeah.

TRACEY: I love how you incorporated your own dreaming story into the story. I really enjoyed reading it.

GRAHAM AKHURST: Oh, thank you. Yeah.

TRACEY: Yeah, I just think it was very interesting, because I don't know that much about dreaming stories. I only know the rainbow serpent and stuff, but I thought it was very interesting that there was your own one in the story.

GRAHAM AKHURST: Oh, thanks.

TRACEY: Yeah. So, obviously, the story centres around mining and fracking. They have a huge impact on places like Australia with sacred land and sites. And you explore this idea in 'Borderland'. So what do you hope readers will take away about the importance of protecting these sites for future generations?

GRAHAM AKHURST: I tried to get across how complex the issues are around mining in this country. Communities-- and I wanted to render multiple viewpoints on this. So we see that in characters like Sid, and then Norman, and Jono and Jenny, and Possum, that there was no definitive answer to this, because, for some communities, having mining enterprise really does build their communities economically. It provides jobs, infrastructure, and these sorts of things.

While on the flip side, where-- particularly in the form of fracking as a mining enterprise, it's a very insidious type of mining, which I don't think should be in Australia because of the way that it literally fractures country and can destroy the ecological systems in a really difficult way when the gas hits the aquifers underneath the water systems and poisons a lot of the country, in many ways, if not done absolutely correctly. So I wanted to get across those types of issues.

I mean, in the end, really, we see that Jono and Jenny are anti-mining. They make sure that mining isn't happening. But at the same time, throughout the journey, we're seeing multiple viewpoints on that big issue for Indigenous Australia.

TRACEY: Yeah, there's lots of layers to it. Yeah.

GRAHAM AKHURST: Yeah.

TRACEY: So moving on, in 'Borderland', you address contemporary issues of Indigenous rights and racism. So how do you hope your novel will impact readers' views on the future relationships between all Australians?

GRAHAM AKHURST: I think people ask me why I wrote 'Borderland'. And for me, when I was growing up in the mid '90s, when I was in high school from '95 to '99 in Brisbane, there were no books like 'Borderland' really on the curriculum. And I wanted to write a novel that showed, particularly our young Indigenous men, for them to see themselves in a text. So for me, that was a key component to showing the kinds of difficulties I went through as a young man grappling with his Indigenous heritage.

But I also wanted to do it before I got too old and I couldn't really connect with that part of myself. So as a first novel, it felt like the best way to do that. And I just wanted to make sure that-- I wanted to get our young men reading. But I also wanted to show, in the form of empathy as a practice, young people reading the novel, understanding what some of the things that Indigenous young people go through in society in general.

TRACEY: Yeah, I just find it quite inspiring how you address these things in your novel. And this is your first book, and I just find it really incredible.

GRAHAM AKHURST: Oh, thank you.

TRACEY: Yeah. So what impact has publishing a debut novel made on your role at UTS? Has it made you more popular?

GRAHAM AKHURST: As an academic, it's part of my job to publish. So it was really wonderful to have my first book finally come out because it took me so long to write. From the time I've started the novel to the time it was published was about 7 years. So for me, it impacted my time at UTS because I've now entered the scene. It's a good publication to have for my academic career.

But more importantly, I think, I'm just really excited to be part of the conversation around Indigenous literature in this country. And I think it's an incredible space to be in, and it's growing exponentially at the moment. And we have so many wonderful new writers, and it's just really exciting.

TRACEY: I agree. Yeah. So could you tell me a bit about the writing process of 'Borderland' and how the idea came to you? I know your life was reflected in it, but when did you decide that you wanted to turn it into a novel?

GRAHAM AKHURST: Yeah, the institution, higher tertiary institutions, were really important in my development. 'Borderland' was-- the first 10,000 words of 'Borderland' were written in my honours year at the University of Queensland in creative writing. And it was from then that I kept building on it until publication.

I had a-- I got an agent, Danielle Binks with Jacinta Dimase, and we'd got a publishing contract with a different publisher, not UWAP that finally published the book. But they took a very long time to want to publish the book, and I got bounced around the house. My editor went on maternity leave a couple of times, and I went to New York and did a master's in creative writing in New York. And when I came back, there was just really no excitement about my novel in the house.

So after speaking with my mentors and talking with my agent, we decided to pull the book and go with a smaller publisher in the University of Western Australian Publishing. But they were so much more excited by 'Borderland'. They saw what I was trying to do with fresh eyes. And there was just so much excitement around the book that I knew that it was the right place to publish my first novel.

TRACEY: Yeah, it's such a well thought-out story. And just now, knowing about all the difficulties, and I just think it's really amazing.

GRAHAM AKHURST: Oh, thank you, Tracey.

TRACEY: So lastly, the ending of 'Borderland', it felt like it was leading up to something else for Jono and Jenny. So do you plan on writing some sort of sequel for it?

GRAHAM AKHURST: Yeah, the book, it has an ending. I won't say that I'll never write a sequel to 'Borderland', but at the moment, I'm looking at other projects because 'Borderland' took me such a long time to write, and I've got an academic book coming out and also co-authored poetry collection. So I think I just wanted to step back from that world for a couple of years and try different forms and different genres before stepping back into the world of 'Borderland'. So I don't-- the answer is, I don't know. Yeah.

TRACEY: Yeah, I completely understand.

GRAHAM AKHURST: Yeah.

TRACEY: Yeah. So thank you so much for letting me interview you today, Graham. It's been amazing talking to you. I hope everyone watching out there today really enjoys reading your incredible novel 'Borderland' as much as I did while they work to complete the Premier's Reading Challenge. Thank you.

GRAHAM AKHURST: Thank you, Tracey. Thanks, everyone.