The Yield

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The Yield
The Yield.jpg
First edition
Author Tara June Winch
Language English
PublisherHamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House Australia
Publication date
2019
Publication place Australia
Pages224 pp
Awards Miles Franklin Award 2020; Prime Minister's Literary Award 2020
ISBN 9781760143671
Preceded byAfter the Carnage 
Followed by- 

The Yield is a 2019 novel by Tara June Winch. [1]

She won the 2020 Miles Franklin Award for this book. [2] The book also won the 2020 Voss Literary Prize and the 2020 Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction. [3]

Contents

Synopsis

The novel follows the story of a young Wiradjuri woman returning home to Australia to attend a funeral, and finding her ancestral lands threatened by mining. The novel explores language and features a Wiradjuri language dictionary, as well as themes of colonialism, environmental issues and intergenerational trauma. [2]

Dedication

Publishing history

After the novel's initial publication by Hamish Hamilton in Australia in 2019, [4] the book was reprinted as follows:

The novel was also translated into French in 2020, [7] Dutch in 2021, [1] German in 2022, [8] and Polish in 2023. [1]

Critical reception

Writing in the Australian Book Review , Ellen van Neerven commented: "The Yield is about regaining more than language. There are odes to Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu , with the pointed inclusions of bush food, bread, and fishing technology. There are only a few places where Winch’s delivery is too didactic, as when Nana tells August, the author speaking directly down the barrel to the reader, ‘we aren’t victims in this story anymore – don't you see that?'." And she concluded: "The Yield will appeal to many because of the way it unpacks complex themes in an accessible way. Australian rural novels are often humourless sketches with characters more like caricatures, grimly serious or full of despair. Refreshingly, the characters in The Yield are capable of communion, humour, and dignity despite tragedy, sexual violence, and substance abuse. In this deft novel of slow-moving water, they are borne by love, not pity." [9]

In The Guardian Erica Wagner noted: "In Wiradjuri the word for 'yield' is baayanha. But as the reader learns throughout this book, translation is far from simple. 'Yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land, the thing he's waited for and gets to claim,' Poppy Gondiwindi writes. In Wiradjuri, 'it's the things you give to, the movement, the space between things'. This is a novel full of the spaces in between...This is a complex, satisfying book, both story and testimony. The Yield works to reclaim a history that never should have been lost in the first place." [10]

Awards

YearAwardCategoryResultRef
2020 ALS Gold Medal —Longlisted
ARA Historical Novel Prize AdultLonglisted
Australian Book Industry Awards Literary FictionShortlisted
AudiobookShortlisted
Barbara Jefferis Award —Shortlisted
Indie Book Award FictionLonglisted
Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award —Longlisted
Miles Franklin Award —Won [2]
New South Wales Premier's Literary Award Christina Stead Prize for Fiction Won
Prime Minister's Literary Award FictionWon [3]
Queensland Literary Awards FictionShortlisted
Reading Women Award FictionShortlisted
Stella Prize —Shortlisted
Victorian Premier's Literary Award Fiction Shortlisted
Voss Literary Prize —Won [3]
2021 International Dublin Literary Award —Longlisted
2022 South Australian Literary Awards FictionWon

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Austlit — The Yield by Tara June Winch". Austlit. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 "Miles Franklin won by Wiradjuri author Tara June Winch for novel of family, history and language". www.abc.net.au. 16 July 2020. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 "Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2020 winners announced". Books+Publishing. 10 December 2020. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
  4. ↑ "The Yield (Hamish Hamilton)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  5. ↑ "The Yield (HarperVia)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  6. ↑ "The Yield (Penguin)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  7. ↑ "The Yield (Gaïa)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  8. ↑ "The Yield (Haymon Verlag)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  9. ↑ ""The Yield by Tara June Winch by Ellen van Neerven"". Australian Book Review, August 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  10. ↑ ""The Yield by Tara June Winch review – reclaiming Australia's Indigenous voices"". The Guardian, 23 January 2021. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
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