We Come With This Place

Judges' Comments

We Come With This Place is a vibrant personal story of the strength of Dank’s extended family, their joy in caring for Country and their generosity in sharing their rich cultural knowledge. The memoir traces multiple generations of Dank’s Gudanji and Wakaja families tracking their experiences of dispossession, institutional and administrative abuse, and economic discrimination as well as their joy and love in friends, family and colleagues. As the title suggests, We Come With This Place evokes a strong sense of place, and love of Country is palpable. Many memorable characters emerge from the pages of the book, interacting with land, water and bush, even as farmers and graziers encroach further into their land. Debra Dank’s book achieves a great emotional depth as we follow the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of her people as they refuse to surrender to racism, discrimination and sometimes brutal violence.  

Dank has freed her narrative from rigid chronology, allowing the story to move across time to foreground place and people. The writing is lyrical and poetic — Dank is a powerful storyteller with a unique voice.  

We Come With This Place communicates with grace and clarity how land and water, mountains ranges and river courses, rocks and trees combine to provide physical, spiritual and psychological nourishment. One of the many achievements of this memoir is the emotional depth which welcomes readers from across Australia and the world to feel how connection to Country can be created and nurtured. The Gudanji landscape of Northern Australia emerges from the pages, in all its physical beauty, as an active transmitter of memory and culture — it is a character in this memoir, as powerfully formed and expressive as the humans Dank so deftly describes. We Come With This Place creates memorable portraits of generations of her family, producing fresh figures in Australian storytelling that promise to become new literary icons.