She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. He finds the words on the wind.Īugust Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather’s death. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Knowing that he will soon die, Albert ‘Poppy’ Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. In the language of the Wiradjuri yield is the things you give to, the movement, the space between things: baayanha. Told in three masterfully woven narratives, The Yield is a celebration of language and an exploration of what makes a place 'home.' A story of a people and a culture dispossessed, it is also a joyful reminder of what once was and what endures―a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling, and identity, that offers hope for the future.The yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land. Determined to make amends and honor Poppy and her family, she vows to save their land―a quest guided by the voice of her grandfather that leads into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Her overwhelming grief is compounded by the pain, anger, and sadness of memory―of growing up in poverty before her mother’s incarceration, of the racism she and her people endured, of the mysterious disappearance of her sister when they were children an event that has haunted her and changed her life. After his passing, Poppy’s granddaughter, August, returns home from Europe, where she has lived the past ten years, to attend his burial.

The land itself aids him he finds the words on the wind.

Before he takes his last breath, Poppy is determined to pass on the language of his people, the traditions of his ancestors, and everything that was ever remembered by those who came before him. A member of the indigenous Wiradjuri tribe, he has spent his adult life in Prosperous House and the town of Massacre Plains, a small enclave on the banks of the Murrumby River. WINNER OF THE MILES FRANKLIN AWARD 2020 An exquisitely written, heartbreaking and hopeful novel of culture, language, tradition, suffering and empowerment ‘A groundbreaking novel for black and white Australia’ Richard Flanagan, Man Booker Prize winning author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North Knowing that he will soon die, Albert “Poppy” Gondiwindi has one final task he must fulfill.

The yield by tara june winch