Butterfly Song

by Terri Janke

published by Penguin books of Australia

This is a rare offering. It is a glimpse into a different life and time. The book depicts the journey of one family through three generations of life in Australian history.

It begins on a small island off the northern coast of Australia with a young girl of mixed Aboriginal and Asian descent falling in love with a young man who is a singer in a local band. The time period is pre-WW II and his occupation is unacceptable to the girl’s family. So he lays up his guitar to start pearl diving, as this is possibly the only occupation, at the time, for black fellas, a term for Aboriginals in Australia.

In the 1940s, the government builds airstrips around the Aboriginal communities on the islands, bringing the war to their backyards, resulting in evacuations which introduces the continent to an otherwise isolated islander culture.

We are taken to the sugar cane fields just outside of Cairns, as the couple relocates with promises of a better life. The parents soon die under the harsh conditions of life and work there, and the children grow and move to Canberra in hopes of a better future and life. This brings us to the main character of the book, which starts off in Canberra and then moves to Sydney for her promise of something better.

The insight and perspective of life for Aboriginal people in Australia as generations of this family moves throughout the country to try to find a place is captivating. We see racism and tension in her workplace, her personal life, and in the lecture halls as the main character comes to terms with what it means to be Aboriginal in Australia even in modern times. It speaks also to the prejudice and intolerance she faces as a young woman waitressing her way through law school, trying to educate those around her.

The author herself is an Aboriginal lawyer from the communities she sets her novel in and takes her readers through a journey she knows well. It is reminiscent of Esmeralda Santiago’s bestseller, When I Was Puerto Rican. The contrast of the periods captured by the author is unique as it symbolizes a beauty in the innocence of love and yet the reality of a culture and people struggling to survive and therefore, leaving their islands in search of work and far off dreams.

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