Open AccessCapturing "The Rabbits"
Author(s) -
Sarah Furlan
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
new emerging scholars in australian indigenous studies.
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2208-1232
DOI - 10.5130/nesais.v5i1.1572
Subject(s) - colonisation , indigenous , allegory , politics , history , focus (optics) , genealogy , anthropology , sociology , art history , archaeology , political science , ecology , law , biology , colonization , physics , optics
The Rabbits, written by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan, is a beautifully designed yet melancholy allegory for the ‘discovery’ and subsequent colonisation of Australia. With its focus on Indigenous Australian history, Marsden has managed to summarise much of the Australian colonisation process in just 229 words. Since it was first published in 1998, the picture book has won multiple awards and continues to be a relevant text, with the issues depicted throughout still significant in Australia’s contemporary social and political spheres.