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Palu
A woman from New Guinea who possesses supernatural powers travels to Australia to be with the leader Emo, then back to her homeland with him, and finds that his lust for power puts her in mortal danger
- GenresAustralia
222 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Louis Nowra
54 books40 followersLouis Nowra (born 12 December 1950) is an Australian writer, playwright, screenwriter and librettist. His most significant plays are Così, Byzantine Flowers, Summer of the Aliens, Radiance, and The Golden Age. In 2007 he completed the The Boyce Trilogy for Griffin Theatre Company, consisting of The Woman with Dog's Eyes, The Marvellous Boy and The Emperor of Sydney. Many of his plays have been filmed.[1]
He was born as Mark Doyle in Melbourne. He changed his name to Louis Nowra in the early 1970s. He studied at Melbourne's La Trobe University without earning a degree. In his memoir, The Twelfth of Never, Nowra claimed that he left the course due to a conflict with his professor on Patrick White's The Tree of Man. He worked in several jobs and lived an itinerant lifestyle until the mid-1970s when his plays began to attract attention.
His radio plays include Albert Names Edward, The Song Room, The Widows and the five part The Divine Hammer aired on the ABC in 2003.[2]
In March 2007, Nowra published a controversial book on violence in Aboriginal communities, Bad Dreaming.
Nowra has been studied extensively in Veronica Kelly's work The Theatre of Louis Nowra.
He resides in Sydney with his wife, author Mandy Sayer.
From Wikipedia
He was born as Mark Doyle in Melbourne. He changed his name to Louis Nowra in the early 1970s. He studied at Melbourne's La Trobe University without earning a degree. In his memoir, The Twelfth of Never, Nowra claimed that he left the course due to a conflict with his professor on Patrick White's The Tree of Man. He worked in several jobs and lived an itinerant lifestyle until the mid-1970s when his plays began to attract attention.
His radio plays include Albert Names Edward, The Song Room, The Widows and the five part The Divine Hammer aired on the ABC in 2003.[2]
In March 2007, Nowra published a controversial book on violence in Aboriginal communities, Bad Dreaming.
Nowra has been studied extensively in Veronica Kelly's work The Theatre of Louis Nowra.
He resides in Sydney with his wife, author Mandy Sayer.
From Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 23, 2020
This book was a wild ride for me, in more ways than just reading it. I found it at an op shop in Abbotsford in 2017, half read it in 2018 then misplaced it at my boyfriend’s in Canberra, and only recently rediscovered it when clearing out my sharehouse of 5 years (at one point, I had retrieved it from my boyfriend’s, but then promptly lost it again – are you sensing a theme of flakiness and forgetfulness? Because you should). As a credit to Nowra’s incredible vision, I still remembered the plot very clearly, and found it easy to thrust myself back into Palu’s world.
Palu is an epic of sorts, depicting the life of the soon-to-be-executed wife of the current president of Papua New Guinea, the dictatorial Emoti. Nowra gives us rich insight into the tribal makeup and ethnic tensions of the country, through the eyes of Palu – a canny Highlands village girl who has an unfettered strength in the face of adversity, a deep love and respect for the culture she came from, but an unfailing curiosity about the world beyond her small village.
It’s fascinating, respectful and well-measured. Some may argue that a white man writing as a black woman is appropriative, and there would be an argument there for it – but I’d urge you to read the text with an open mind, because Nowra handled the subject matter with an ingrained and non-voyeuristic gravity.
Furthermore, Nowra was very adept, in my opinion, at describing feminine desire and sexuality. I had double check that it was a man writing! Other reviews here have mentioned that they felt uncomfortable at certain points, and I’d hazard a guess maybe that was in part due to the manner in which Emo’s proclivities were dealt with, ie the angel and the dick mutilation scenes. I saw it more as a metaphor for him attempting to shed himself – he was mutilating his legacy and his self (and I’d argue we’re positioned to see his penis through this lens: a thing that is supposed to bring him potency and children) before these new Western ideals. I took it as a metaphor, a little gratuitous, for the new face of colonialism.
I also liked the ambiguity of Palu’s supernatural powers. Personally, I don’t believe she had any, but I enjoyed the way we were positioned to doubt it multiple times. PNG is unfortunately a country where women are still getting murdered for being witches – look up the Amnesty International fact sheet if you don’t believe me – and the way men both feared and revered Palu’s feminine power was very much in line with The Crucible and other witch-themed “aren’t women scary” pieces of media, such as The VVitch.
The reason this can’t be a 4 or 5 star for me basically comes down to taste – I don’t like the way it wrapped up! Nowra painted himself into a corner by having the pages we read have to be written be Palu, so her decline could only ever be depicted unspectacularly. I also found her guard falling in love with her just… so fanciful. As if! It was almost like a deadline needed to be reached and Nowra tried to very clumsily wrap up the novel in the last twenty pages. It’s a shame!
Palu is an epic of sorts, depicting the life of the soon-to-be-executed wife of the current president of Papua New Guinea, the dictatorial Emoti. Nowra gives us rich insight into the tribal makeup and ethnic tensions of the country, through the eyes of Palu – a canny Highlands village girl who has an unfettered strength in the face of adversity, a deep love and respect for the culture she came from, but an unfailing curiosity about the world beyond her small village.
It’s fascinating, respectful and well-measured. Some may argue that a white man writing as a black woman is appropriative, and there would be an argument there for it – but I’d urge you to read the text with an open mind, because Nowra handled the subject matter with an ingrained and non-voyeuristic gravity.
Furthermore, Nowra was very adept, in my opinion, at describing feminine desire and sexuality. I had double check that it was a man writing! Other reviews here have mentioned that they felt uncomfortable at certain points, and I’d hazard a guess maybe that was in part due to the manner in which Emo’s proclivities were dealt with, ie the angel and the dick mutilation scenes. I saw it more as a metaphor for him attempting to shed himself – he was mutilating his legacy and his self (and I’d argue we’re positioned to see his penis through this lens: a thing that is supposed to bring him potency and children) before these new Western ideals. I took it as a metaphor, a little gratuitous, for the new face of colonialism.
I also liked the ambiguity of Palu’s supernatural powers. Personally, I don’t believe she had any, but I enjoyed the way we were positioned to doubt it multiple times. PNG is unfortunately a country where women are still getting murdered for being witches – look up the Amnesty International fact sheet if you don’t believe me – and the way men both feared and revered Palu’s feminine power was very much in line with The Crucible and other witch-themed “aren’t women scary” pieces of media, such as The VVitch.
The reason this can’t be a 4 or 5 star for me basically comes down to taste – I don’t like the way it wrapped up! Nowra painted himself into a corner by having the pages we read have to be written be Palu, so her decline could only ever be depicted unspectacularly. I also found her guard falling in love with her just… so fanciful. As if! It was almost like a deadline needed to be reached and Nowra tried to very clumsily wrap up the novel in the last twenty pages. It’s a shame!
May 20, 2017
Really had to chug through this. It was a bit bogged down for the first half, then really picked up when you really get into the narrative. Lots of this book made me really uncomfortable in an unwelcomed way.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews