This month Stella celebrates Terra Nullius, shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Prize.
What book are you currently reading?
I am currently reading Omar Sakr’s The Nightmare Sequence. In my opinion Omar is one of the best poets in Australia if not actually the best and in these times when genocide is flashing off the screens in our hands 24 hours a day it’s important not to look away. Sakr’s book of poetry on the Gaza Genocide is not pleasant but it makes you feel, it makes you see, it helps you understand. It’s an important book.
You’ve spoken about writing Terra Nullius while being homeless and travelling around the country in your caravan. What role did writing play for you during that time?
When I came up with the story for Terra Nullius I was grappling with the impacts of colonisation and genocide on my family. I was struggling to understand why the mainstream of so-called Australia couldn’t understand that colonisation was an unmitigated disaster for Indigenous people, my people. Terra Nullius helped me not only explain the world I could see around me but also helped me understand it myself.
The title Terra Nullius is politically and historically loaded. What does the phrase mean to you, and why was it important to reclaim and reframe it in this novel?
Terra Nullius, the legal conceit that Australia was empty of people when the colonisers arrived, was an obvious lie, centred in Colonial ideas of what land ownership means. The Mabo decision not only declared it untrue but also declared that it was never true, that the land of this continent belongs and always belonged to Indigenous people. On the other hand if you don’t know the meaning or the cultural context it reads a lot like something you would see in science fiction where it would perhaps translate as “nobody’s planet” or “empty planet”.
I think it is deeply important to demonstrate again and again how much the legal concept of Terra Nullius was based in fiction.
The story is told from multiple perspectives: settler and colonised, human and non-human. Why did you decide to do that, and was there a voice that was hardest to write?
When I wrote Terra Nullius I didn’t really know what I was doing, I had no experience or training at writing and had never studied how to write a novel. I simply found it easier to write from multiple POVs. None of the characters were harder than others because they existed because they were necessary. However some were more unpleasant than others; for example I found Sister Bagra painful to write although it was easy.
Claire G. Coleman’s Terra Nulllius is an arresting and original novel that addresses the legacy of Australia’s violent colonial history.
Terra Nullius begins as what feels like historical fiction but then shifts into speculative fiction set in the near future. What drew you to have that genre switch?
The genre switch was there all along, was in fact the foundational idea of the novel and the rest of the work was built around it. It allowed me to humanise Indigenous people and universalise our experience of colonisation. So much speculative fiction is privileged people writing and reading to imagine themselves as the victim, imagining themselves in the position of people they oppressed.
Terra Nullius puts the reader in the position of the victim and it’s the genre switch that makes that possible.
Terra Nullius marked an extraordinary debut, and your journey from writing while homeless to becoming an award-winning author is incredibly powerful. Looking back now, what has surprised you most about life after the book’s release?
I think the most surprising thing is the impact I and my work has had on others and on society in general. When I was writing Terra Nullius I was near the bottom of the social ladder and only family and a few friends even knew I existed. Since the publication of Terra Nullius I have made many new friends and have discovered many fans of my works.
When I wrote Terra Nullius I decided I could consider it a complete success if only one person had their attitude to Indigenous people changed by it. Since then I have reached hundred of people and more people read Terra Nullius than I would have imagined even possible.
About the Author
Claire G. Coleman is a Noongar woman whose family have belonged to the south coast of Western Australia since long before history started being recorded. She writes fiction, essays, poetry and art criticism while either living in Naarm (Melbourne) or on the road.
Born in Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar (Perth), away from her ancestral country she has lived most of her life in Victoria and most of that in and around Naarm (Melbourne).
During an extended circuit of the continent she wrote a novel, influenced by certain experiences gained on the road. She has since won a Black&Write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship for that novel, Terra Nullius. Terra Nullius was published in Australia by Hachette Australia and in North America by Small Beer Press.
Claire’s second novel, The Old Lie, was written in response to what she learned when traveling and was published in 2019 by Hachette Australia.
Lies, Damned Lies, Claire’s first non-fiction book, unpacking the effects of the history of Australia’s colonisation, was released on the 1st of September 2021.
Enclave is her third novel.
About the Book
Jacky was running. There was no thought in his head, only an intense drive to run. There was no sense he was getting anywhere, no plan, no destination, no future. All he had was a sense of what was behind, what he was running from. Jacky was running.
The Natives of the Colony are restless. The Settlers are eager to have a nation of peace, and to bring the savages into line. Families are torn apart, reeducation is enforced. This rich land will provide for all.
This is not Australia as we know it. This is not the Australia of our history. This TERRA NULLIUS is something new, but all too familiar.
This is an incredible debut from a striking new Australian Aboriginal voice.
Judges Report
Claire G. Coleman’s Terra Nullius is an arresting and original novel that addresses the legacy of Australia’s violent colonial history. It begins with a breathless account of a young man named Jacky running away from a remote missionary outpost overseen by the domineering Sister Bagra. The dramatic tale of flight and pursuit that unfolds across the book’s early chapters develops into a scathing commentary on the systemic depredations and injustices that are all-too familiar as consequences of the archetypal conflict that inevitably arises between the two groups the novel refers to simply as Natives and Settlers. Later, the novel shifts into the realm of science fiction, which is used to grant what initially appears to be a straightforward if slightly allegorised story of colonial oppression, dehumanisation and resistance an additional scourging layer of dramatic irony. Coleman’s punchy prose is insistent throughout, its energy unflagging. Terra Nullius is a novel for our times, one whose tone is as impassioned as its message is necessary.
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