Q&A with Sharlene Allsopp
“His is an epic worthy of the annals, and the annals are not interested.”
~ Blurring The Borders by Sharlene Allsopp
Your creative nonfiction piece Blurring the Borders explores silenced and invisible histories through a very personal story: discovering your great grandfather, a Bundjalung man, fought in WWI. Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind your work?
Albert Camus said that “fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” I would add that history is the fiction through which Nations tell lies.
Australia has told/recorded/legislated/perpetrated so many lies about Indigenous Australia that even as an Indigenous person (my Mum is Bundjalung, my Dad is white) I grew up believing those lies, even though the evidence right in front of me - my family - contradicted that narrative.
When I discovered this truth about my great grandfather—a truth that history told me was impossible (he enlisted in 1915 when the Defence Act, and the accompanying advice to enlisting officers, outlawed his service)—it resulted in me questioning every other truth Australia has told me.
While I carefully attempt to research and talk with those who remember him, I have very limited access to him and his story. I find that creative nonfiction is a genre that I can use to explore a relationship that I will never have access to. The page is a place where he and I can almost exist together. Not only that, it’s a way of writing him into the archive so that his story – or at least a version of it – is no longer invisible.
Your piece dives into the complexities of personal and cultural identity. Is this something you often explore in your writing?
Honestly, it’s about the only theme I ever write about! What else are we, but our identity? The process of how we form our sense of self, individually and collectively, fascinates me because it is the lens that we see the world through and ultimately it is the driving force for how we treat everybody that we encounter.
The lies we believe about other people’s identity are often what enables oppression and discrimination. Fear is fed through lies and silences, so talking about identity, celebrating our similarities and differences, and exploring them in words on paper is my contribution to truth-telling.
Your novella The Great Undoing was highly commended for the 2020 Boundless Indigenous Writer's Mentorship. How did you first get the idea for your protagonist Scarlet Friday - a language specialist and Australian refugee?
I’m obsessed with the way that blood and language are used as weapons against the marginalised. Somehow race and accent are used as measurements of belonging.
Scarlet Friday lives in a future where Australian technology has redefined global borders. When that technology fails, Scarlet has to navigate a world where BloodTalk (the technology) has no further power to tell you who are. Every nation who relied upon the technology is essentially left stateless, a globe full of first world refugees who cannot prove who they are or who they aren’t, or what they own.
Scarlet’s power over language is in her capacity as a Truth-Teller. It’s a story about language and its power over identity and history – or in Scarlet’s case herstory. There is a love story too. A world-famous, powerful rock star whose lyrical language contests Scarlet’s own power over her story. So watch this space…
You have said that writing requires both "incredible bravery and sheer lunacy." Who are some brave writers we should be adding to our reading list?
I could fill an A4 page with a list of names that you can absolutely count on to rend your heart and worldview simultaneously – we are spoilt for choice.
I cannot go past Ellen Van Neerven, Claire G. Coleman, Tara June Winch, and Melissa Lukashenko—all magically combining bravery and beauty.
The particular works that have broken my heart open this past couple of years have been No Friend But the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani (talk about raw courage), Australia Day by Stan Grant, See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill. Oh, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid and How to be Both by Ali Smith, Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia – including the online stories on BlackWords (shameless self-promotion!) edited by Anita Heiss. The Yield by Tara June Winch. Oh dear, I can’t stop!
I am currently reading Tell Me Why by Archie Roach and The War Artist by Simon Cleary. And the next text on my list is Firefront edited by Alison Whittaker.
Sharlene Allsopp was born and raised on Bundjalung country and dreams of capturing that elusive perfect sentence—preferably liquored up in a Champagne field in France. She studies and tutors at the University of Queensland in Writing and Literature, was shortlisted for the 2019 Overland writing residency, and Highly Commended for the 2020 Boundless Indigenous Writer’s Mentorship. She co-founded a charity for domestic violence survivors, and manages a household full of sons, daughters, a husband, and the love of her life—a fluffy ball of puppy called Morty.