Gabo Djara

The master theme in the literature of an oppressed, exploited people is likely to be the vandalizing of their culture and the ravaging of their landscape by the conquerors and colonizers. And so it is in this third volume of a trilogy (after Walg and Karau by a pseudonymous Australian writer rooted in both peoples, the son of an aboriginal mother and a European father. In the mode of allegory, myth and folklore, the legend unfolds of Gabo Djara, the green ant who breaks out of his natal cocoon only to find himself in the hallowed halls of Parliament. At the palace he discovers the Queen knighting his arch-enemy, Sir Rock-Pile Ore, the infamous uranium mogul; in Court his great friend the Witch Doctor is on trial for his life. Quixotically, Gabo Djara sallies forth to do battle against computer, vacuum cleaner, nuclear reactorthe cataclysmic future promised by modern technology; in short, what the white man has made of the once green and fragrant world. In this cross between fantasy and sci-fi, Wongar aptly contrasts goodness, virtue and beauty of tribal society with the forces of evil demonstrated in the fearsome mushroom cloud. (July)