Mudrooroo’s ‘Wild Cat Falling’ in Persian

‘Wild Cat Falling,’ a 1965 novel on identity and belonging by acclaimed Australian novelist, poet, essayist and playwright Mudrooroo, 78, is now available in Persian.

Iranian translator Shiva Qadami, 44, has rendered the novel into Persian, after it was recommended by her brother Farid Qadami, a more famous writer and translator, Azad News Agency (ANA) reported.

The Persian translation of the novel has been brought out in 146 pages by Tehran-based Ijaz publishing house.

Speaking on the book, Shiva said: “(when I read the book) it reminded me of America’s Beat Generation,” a movement started by a group of authors who influenced American culture in the post-World War II era. The members of Beat Generation were reputed as ‘bohemian hedonists’ who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity.

In the 1960’s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie and larger counterculture movements.

“The book is about the underground life of the youth in Australia in the 1960s, particularly of bodgies who were members of a 1950’s rock subculture. It expresses the dilemmas and conflicts of the young Aboriginal in modern Australian society,” she added.

“In a gripping narrative, it describes the life of the intellectuals and students (in the 60s Australia), and hints at racism and the depth of Aboriginal culture,” the translator said.

‘Wild Cat Falling’ is the first novel by an Aboriginal writer. The author’s real name is Colin Thomas Johnson. His many works are centered on Australian Aboriginal characters and topics.

According to the blurb of the book, identity and belonging, and their opposites namelessness and isolation, are bold, stark themes in the book. It is the story of an Aboriginal youth, a bodgie in the early sixties, who grows up on the ragged outskirts of a country town, falls into petty crime, goes to jail and comes out to battle once more with the society who put him there.