The Secret River

Background

The Secret River was inspired by Grenville's desire to understand the history of her ancestor Solomon Wiseman, who settled on the Hawkesbury River at the area now known as Wisemans Ferry.[2]: 13  Her inspiration to understand this came from her taking part in the 28 May 2000 Reconciliation Walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge during which she realised that she didn't know much about the early interactions between the settlers and the Aboriginal people.[2]: 12  Initially intended to be a work of non-fiction about Wiseman, the book eventually became a fictional work based on her research into Wiseman but not specifically about Wiseman himself. The novel took five years and twenty drafts to complete.[3]

The novel is dedicated to the Aboriginal people of Australia.[4] It sparked hostility from some historians, including Australian academic Mark McKenna, who published an article in which he criticised Kate Grenville, claiming that Grenville had referred to The Secret River as a "work of history", however, he could not provide a source for the statement.[5] It received a positive response from many Aboriginal people; Grenville has said "they recognise that the book is my act of acknowledgement, my way of saying: this is how I'm sorry".[3]

Adaptations

The Secret River has been adapted for the stage by Andrew Bovell; the play was presented by the Sydney Theatre Company in January 2013[6][7] and included in the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2019.[8]

A TV adaptation was made in 2015 by Ruby Entertainment with support from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Screen Australia, and was aired in June of that year by ABC TV as a two-part miniseries.[9]


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