B. Wongar

B.Wongar
B.Wongar
	B.Wongar in the 1980’s B.Wongar in the 1980’s
Born	1932
Occupation	author,

B.Wongar (born 1932), daring Australian author who writes chiefly on the fate of tribal people in Australia, wildlife and the environment. Wongar grew up in Eastern Europe, which he fled in 1950’s. He spent some years in France as a refugee where he met Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who encouraged him to write.

Wongar arrived in Australia in 1960 and moved up north where he lived with tribal Aborigines for some years. The name Wongar was given to him by his tribal wife Dumala and her relatives. From Dumala he learnt about Aboriginal poetry and their traditional way of life in the bush. He was not allowed to publish his work in Australia for years. His first book The Track to Bralgu was translated into French from the original manuscript and published in Les Temps Modernes (1976), magazine which was run by Sartre and de Beauvior. When to book appeared in the English edition two years later (Little, Brown, USA), it herald a new genre of creative writing and brought international fame to the author. ^{[citation needed]} In Australia however Wongar was criticized by some white people for portraying the Aborigines and there was a campaign to discredit his work as “ fake”. He was not allowed to stay any longer in the Northern part of Australia and had to move down south to Melbourne. His wife Dumala and the children were to follow but they never made it, they died from radioactive contamination left behind from Uranium mining, as he described later in Dingoes Den, his autobiography.[1]

While he was in the Northern part of Australia Wongar worked on his Totem and Ore photographic collection known also under the tile Boomerang and Atom. The collection contained several thousand of black and white photographic shots portraying the impact of Uranium mining and the British Nuclear testing on tribal Aborigines. In 1974 Wongar was asked to send some of the Totem and Ore photographs for an exhibition in the Parliament house Library in Canberra. The exhibition was banned by order of the parliament only a few hours after the official opening. ^{[citation needed]}

Wongar settled on his bush property Dingo Den in Gippsland, south of Melbourne where, helped by photographic images from Totem and Ore collection, he wrote the nuclear trilogy (novels: Walg, Karan and Gabo Djara- see Robert Ross, “The track to Armageddon in B.Wongars Nuclear Trilogy,” Worlds Literature Today, Winter 1990, USA). The trilogy was first published in Germany, translated from the original manuscript by Annemarie and Heinrich Bö ll. The English language edition first appeared in 1988. It was launched at the Aboriginal Research Center, Monash University where Wongar at the time was serving as writer- in- residence. While he was at work, police raided B Wongar’s home at Dingoes Den and took some of his work, including sole copies of manuscripts of his new novel Raki. (See Robert Pullan: 'In Police Custody: 200 Pages of B. Wongar's novel, in The Australian Author, Vol 21, No 4, Summer 1989/90.) It took Wongar about 5 years to write Raki again. This was followed by his new book DIDJERIDU CHARMER thus extending his trilogy into Nuclear Quintet.[2]

He still resides in Australia and writes about Aboriginal life there.

Bibliography

Aboriginal Myths
The Track to Bralgu[3]
Babaru[4]
Bilma
Marngit[5]
Raki[6]
The Last Pack of Dingoes[7]
Totem and Ore[8]
The Sinners
Dingoes Den( B Wongars Autobiography) [9]
The New Guinea diaries

The Nuclear Cycle: Walg, Karan, Gabo Djara, Raki

References

Wongar, B (1997). Raki. London: Marion Boyars. ISBN 978-0-7145-3031-4

Sorena Productions, Australia, Director/Writer John Mandelberg (1994) "A Double Life. The Life and Times of B.Wongar" 56 minute video documentary on his life.

External links