Kirrali Lewis is a young indigenous woman who has grown up in a loving white family in a small country town. By the time she leaves home to enrol in law at Melbourne University in 1985, she still knows almost nothing about her in-digenous past. Initially disdaining Aboriginal people – she is a rather prim, conservative bluestocking at the outset – Kirrali avoids people at university who might be her natural allies. She is soon drawn into the indigenous society of Fitz-roy and Carlton, and questions about her identity keep arising. As Kirrali, who knows neither of her biological parents, learns more about her past, so the reader encounters an authentic, textured portrayal of a vital era of Australian history. Racist bashings, police shootings, casual and not-so-casual racism, and the emerging indigenous political and creative class form the backdrop to the novel's central dramas of family and identity. The mid-1980s are seen as a period of great struggle and, paradoxically, as one of great optimism and change.

For someone my age, 1985 doesn't always seem that long ago: for the teenage reader today it is almost ancient histo-ry. No mobile phones, no internet ... how did those people live? Having read Becoming Kirrali Lewis during the Adam Goodes debate, I wonder just how far we have come. Becoming Kirrali Lewis is the best novel on indigenous issues and perspectives I have read in a long time, and is a welcome addition to the literature for young people.