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B. Wongar. Raki. Yumayna Burarwana, ill. Sydney. Angus & Robertson. 1994. xii + 252 pages, ill. A$16.95. ISBN 0207184224.
B. Wongar takes the title for his new novel from an Aboriginal word, raki, which the book's glossary defines as "rope or noose." We soon learn that the rope is woven from konopla, which appears in the glossary under "Serbian and associated terms" and is described as "an annual plant growing about the height of a man." This unlikely rope, then, serves as a unifying device. It links the Australian Aboriginal condition for two hundred years with Serbian tragedy for the past thousand or so years. Then it transcends the literal and examines, perhaps reveals, the nature of evil.
To embark...