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Amnesia Road: Landscape, Violence and Memory

2021 - Shortlisted

Shortlisted

Amnesia Road is a history of two episodes of historical violence — the colonial frontier of South West Queensland and rural Andalusia in the late 1930s. Through a powerful exploration of trauma and public memory, this unique comparison illuminates both places, their national identity, and their fraught and politicised relationship with the past. 

Combining travel writing and memoir with an unsparing account of the foundational role of violence in nation-building, Stegemann’s work is a profoundly humane reflection on our need to remember, and to forget. This beautifully written, lyrical book draws on a sincere love of rural Australia, and dares to hope we might transcend the legacy of our colonial past and its echoes in the culture wars of the present.