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A Kindness Cup

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( 150 ratings, 22 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
A Kindness Cup by Thea Astley, published in 1974, is known for its incisive examination of morality and justice in a small Australian town. The novel did not receive major literary awards upon its release, but Thea Astley herself was a highly acclaimed author, having won the Miles Franklin Award multiple times for other works. On the other hand, Kate Grenville is a renowned author with no direct connection to A Kindness Cup, as she did not collaborate with Astley on this novel. However, both authors have significantly impacted Australian literature with their contributions.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might appreciate this compelling narrative if you're intrigued by stories that delve into the complexities of human nature and social justice within a small community. It offers a rich exploration of moral dilemmas, historical injustices, and the enduring impact of past events on the present, all woven together in an engaging and thought-provoking manner.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

A man returns to his hometown two decades after a massacre of local Aboriginal people, where former residents have reunited to celebrate the progress and prosperity of their community, to insist that the town confront its dark past.

A woman becomes obsessed with the story of a long-dead colonial pioneer, and her research becomes a way of coming to terms with her own past.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

I told them to go into the scrub and disperse the tribe.
Disperse? That is a strange word. What do you mean by dispersing?
Firing at them.

Two decades after a massacre of local Aboriginal people, the former residents of a Queensland town have reunited to celebrate the progress and prosperity of their community. Tom Dorahy, returning to his hometown, is having none of it: he wants those responsible to own up to their actions.

A reckoning with oppression, guilt, and the weight of the past, A Kindness Cup is one of Thea Astleyโ€™s greatest achievements.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

A Kindness Cup is praised for its smart and compassionate narrative. It is recognised as one of the earliest empathetic works by a white Australian writer addressing the horrors of nineteenth-century racial violence. The reissue of the novel offers a chance to appreciate Thea Astley's incisive examination of social injustice, with the book being noted as one of Australia's finest short novels.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781925603545

Publisher: Text Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 30 April 2018

Country: Australia

Imprint: The Text Publishing Company

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 224

About the Author

Thea Astley was born in Brisbane in 1925. Her first novel, Girl with a Monkey, was published in 1958 and her third, The Well Dressed Explorer (1962), won the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Many notable books followed, among them the groundbreaking A Kindness Cup (1974), which addressed frontier massacres of Indigenous Australians, and Itโ€™s Raining in Mango (1987). Her last novel was Drylands (1999), her fourth Miles Franklin winner. Her fiction is distinguished by vivid imagery and metaphor; a complex, ironic style; and a desire to highlight oppression and social injustice. One of the most distinctive and influential Australian novelists of the twentieth century, Astley died in 2004.

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