Amnesia Road

Description:


*Winner of the 2021 Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award*

*Winner of the 2021 Queensland Literary Award for Non-Fiction*

*Shortlisted for the 2021 NSW Premier’s History Awards, Australian History Prize*

At both ends of the world, I have found confusion and profound disagreement about how to read the story of the past, about who should write or speak it, and what parts of it should be written or spoken about at all.'

Amnesia Road is a compelling literary examination of historic violence in rural areas of Australia and Spain. It is also an unashamed celebration of the beautiful landscapes where this violence has been carried out. Travelling and writing across two locations – the seldom-visited mulga plains of south-west Queensland and the backroads of rural Andalusia – award-winning Australian Hispanist Luke Stegemann uncovers neglected history and its many neglected victims, and asks what place such forgotten people have in contemporary debates around history, nationality, guilt and identity.

'This book will come to be regarded as a classic of Australian literature.' — Nicolas Rothwell

'Daring and original: an eloquent and moving meditation on place, memory and history.' — Mark McKenna

'Amnesia Road swept me away in lyrical storytelling, though veiled inside is a brutally complex shared history exposing th