Stephen Muecke is professor of creative writing at Flinders University, and is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Recent books are Bruno Latour and the Humanities, edited with Rita Felski, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020 and The Mother’s Day Protest and other Fictocritical Essays, Rowman and Littlefield International, 2016.Paddy Roe, OAM (c1912-2001) was a Goolarabooloo Elder and Law man from Broome. He published, with Stephen Muecke, Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley (1983) and with Krim Benterrak and Stephen Muecke, Reading the Country (1984). He started the famous Lurujarri Heritage Trail in 1987 as a way of protecting Country by teaching people how to understand it.

In thisremarkable book, Stephen Muecke continues his conversation with his mentor, Paddy Roe. Their new story is a guide to a possible future, based on a past that is never simply past. Paddy Roe is always, and always will be, present, while Muecke remains his enquiring listener and dutiful scribe.This is our children’s country. To disrespect country, to harm it, is to harm them.

• INTRODUCTIONDAY 1—WALKING DAY 2—HISTORY DAYS 3 & 4—LAWDAY 5—SCIENCE DAY 6—POLITICSDAY 7—ECONOMICSDAY 8—ARTDAY 9—BACK TO CIVILISATIONAPPENDIX 1BIBLIOGRAPHY