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\n Yilkari: A desert suite<\/p>\n
Whenever I read a book by Nicolas Rothwell I\u00a0have the unsettling feeling that I\u2019m not living my life as clearly or as deeply as I should. Ditto when I read writers Rothwell reminds me of, such as W.\u200aG. Sebald, Bruce Chatwin or Teju Cole. They are conjurers of the enigma, of the elusive, of the indescribable something that remains forever out of reach.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s somewhat of a relief, then, to find the Rothwellian narrator of Yilkari: A desert suite grapples with similar uncertainties. This \u201cstrange scholar of the northern highways\u201d is our guide through the four linked stories in this collection: \u201cValentin\u201d, \u201cDylan\u201d, \u201cCaptain\u201d and \u201cMaster\u201d. He is not the central character. He is an observer, a European-born Australian who is gently chided when, on seeing a giant perentie, he thinks not of the reptile nor the land but of Leo Tolstoy\u2019s attempt to converse with a lizard.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that he doesn\u2019t know the country. He has explored the setting of the book \u2013 the vast Western Desert in Central Australia \u2013 many times. It\u2019s that he\u2019s not of the Country and never will be. Throughout his travels, notes one of his friends, \u201che always has to follow someone, be on someone\u2019s trail \u2026 even Burke and Wills \u2026 As if they were still out there somewhere and he could catch them up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rothwell, a two-time winner of the Prime Minister\u2019s Literary Award (nonfiction for Quicksilver in 2017 and fiction for Red Heaven in 2022), has co-authored Yilkari with his wife, Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson, a Luritja-Pintupi woman from the Western Desert community of Papunya and a former member of the Northern Territory parliament who is an artist and writer.<\/p>\n
How much of the book is in Anderson\u2019s hand? In a note to the reader, the authors describe Yilkari as \u201cthe product of two minds\u201d. Sentence by sentence the writing is Rothwell\u2019s. His elegant prose is unmistakeable. The deep, lived connection to Country, and to Indigenous culture, comes from Anderson. She brings to the story an understanding that is beyond Rothwell\u2019s reach, as it was beyond Burke and Wills\u2019s.<\/p>\n
This book is a series of conversations: between the narrator and various travelling companions and people they meet along the way. The Indigenous people, such as the titular Captain and Master, tell the hard, loving truths. \u201cTruth\u2019s all we\u2019ve got to push the darkness back,\u2019\u2019 remarks Captain, a man from the Gulf country who was taken from his community as a child and raised in foster homes. The main character, throughout, is the country and its mysteries and secrets. It is a living presence, \u201cfull of wonders. Full of terrors\u201d that will \u201conly show itself to us clearly\u201d when we move through it with \u201cloving, trusting eyes\u201d.<\/p>\n
Here are two passages that I hope illustrate the elegance of Rothwell\u2019s writing and the centrality of Anderson\u2019s contribution. First, one of not-knowing. The narrator remembers travelling through the desert with his father, who he rarely saw, when he was nine. It is a beautiful story that reflects Rothwell\u2019s own childhood. His father tells him he once thought of writing about the country, to \u201cdescribe it truly, plunge into it and hear its heartbeat. I longed to do that, I\u2019d have given anything to, but I couldn\u2019t find the words.\u201d<\/p>\n
When his son asks why, his father replies, \u201cI don\u2019t think there are words for it. You could struggle all your life to find them and still fail \u2026 The words we have don\u2019t reach far enough, they\u2019re not from here, they\u2019re not suited to this world, they can\u2019t capture that coiled, tense feeling you get out here sometimes, the fear that comes so suddenly \u2026 I almost think you\u2019d need new words, new ways of writing. Words for what\u2019s invisible and what\u2019s unseen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The knowing comes from the narrator\u2019s wife, Narulya, when she tells him she knows why he wants to make a certain trip in the Great Sandy Desert. He asks her how she knows. \u201cI just do. That\u2019s the way it is for us. When we\u2019re out on our own country our senses become sharper. We see through to the heart of life. We see what\u2019s in people. Their hopes and fears. What\u2019s true about them and what\u2019s false. Things people don\u2019t even know about themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The title, Yilkari, is a remote location in Western Australia, but it is also more than that. In the opening chapter, Valentin, a European composer raised in Siberia, flies to the desert to meet the narrator, who he first met in Berlin as the wall came down.<\/p>\n
An Indigenous man they meet, Mr Giles, stretches his arms towards the sky and says, \u201cYilkari\u201d. Valentin asks the meaning of this \u201cstrong, well-made word\u201d and the narrator replies, \u201cMany things.\u201d Valentin asks for more and the narrator continues. \u201cSo, then: sky; Heaven; clarity; everlastingness and distance \u2013 and that\u2019s just the beginning. Probably other, higher things as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is right about that. Mr Giles then says something about Yilkari the narrator did not know. Something important. As the narrator tells Valentin, \u201cYou could spend your whole life here and only touch the surface.\u201d That\u2019s how I feel about this book. Reading it once is just the beginning. \u2022<\/p>\n
Text Publishing, 288pp, $34.99<\/p>\n
\n This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
\n July 26, 2025 as “Yilkari: A desert suite”.<\/p>\n
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\n Yilkari: A desert suite<\/p>\n
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