Smudged, distorted and hidden : apocalypse as protest in Indigenous speculative fiction

These three writers (Sam Watson, Alexis Wright and Archie Weller) utilize the imagery and patterns of apocalypse in their speculative fictions as a protest, to reveal new perspectives of the past and the present. The authors argue that white settlement in Australia was apocalyptic because the brutal colonization and war almost destroyed the Indigenous populations of the country. The novels also challenge the view that Indigenous history has no relevance to the present, by conflating past and present to demonstrate that all times coexist and are of equal significance. The act of writing for a people who survived the ending of their world is a protest because it offers the opportunity to address the silencing and distortion of Indigenous voices by giving speech to those whom the colonists designated as less than nothing. These three novels all construct the British colonization of Australia as a disaster for Indigenous people, but the texts offer different perspectives on the prospect of reconciliation. While Wright's novel concludes by focusing on the destruction and loss, Watson's text ends ambiguously, apparently unable to resolve the contradictions between the sustained critique of white society and the narrative attempts to recognize the kinship of white and black groups. It is Weller's work that most clearly focuses on the imperative for reconciliation, presenting a determinedly utopic vision of the potential for interracial restoration. All three texts, however, offer a voice for a people that have too often been silenced or forgotten.