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After Story

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After Story

By: Larissa Behrendt
Narrated by: Tamala Shelton, Shari Sebbens
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About this listen

When a mother and daughter take the overseas trip of a lifetime, they discover that the past is never quite behind them.

When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother, Della, on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past.

Twenty-five years earlier, the disappearance of Jasmine's older sister devastated their tight-knit community. This tragedy returns to haunt Jasmine and Della when another child mysteriously goes missing on Hampstead Heath. As Jasmine immerses herself in the world of her literary idols - including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and Virginia Woolf - Della is inspired to rediscover the wisdom of her own culture and storytelling. But sometimes the stories that are not told can become too great to bear.

Ambitious and engrossing, After Story celebrates the extraordinary power of words and the quiet spaces between. We can be ready to listen, but are we ready to hear?

Prof. Larissa Behrendt is a Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman. She is the professor of law and director of research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney.

She is admitted to the Supreme Court of the ACT and NSW as a barrister. Larissa is a land commissioner at the Land and Environment Court and the alternate chair of the Serious Offenders Review Board, a member of the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia and a founding member of the Australian Academy of Law. She is the chair of the Humanities and Creative Arts panel of the Australian Research Council College of Experts. She is the author of several books on Indigenous legal issues.

She won the 2002 David Uniapon Award and a 2005 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for her novel Home. Larissa is a board member of the Museum of Contemporary Art, a board member of Tranby Aboriginal College and a director of the Bangarra Dance Theatre. She was named as 2009 NAIDOC Person of the Year.

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©2021 Larissa Behrendt (P)2021 Audible Australia Pty Ltd.
Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature Fiction Heartfelt Thought-Provoking

Critic Reviews

"A moving story of going far away to find home again - a beautiful, hopeful book." (Kate Grenville)

"A literary tour that speaks to the imagination, connecting the cannon of English literature to the lives of a mother and daughter whose own stories have been untold, Larissa weaves an exquisite tapestry that talks to our common humanity that lives within the stories we collect, treasure and share." (Rachel Griffiths)

"After Story is a work of great originality. It is a tale of discovery and understanding, envisioned through the shared experiences of Della and Jasmine on a journey to the 'old country', a place that is not theirs. Through Della and Jasmine we come to understand the depths of familial love, with poignancy, humour and true storytelling." (Tony Birch)

What listeners say about After Story

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Beautiful

I have laughed and cried while listening to this book. Such amazing writing and performance. 😊🙏🏿

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6 people found this helpful

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Loved It

Loved it.
Easy but interesting listening. I really enjoyed hearing the two different perspectives of what was happening, makes you think.

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3 people found this helpful

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beautiful

this book was amazing
made me feel or the feels
beautiful story I loved how It feels so real

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A truly beautiful story

I loved the way the two characters saw the world through their sun very different eyes yet learnt from those around them. The clever comparisons of history were beautifully and seamlessly woven into the story and felt as though they occurred naturally (even though they must have been thoroughly researched by the author in order to provide such insight). A wonderful story for anyone but particularly those of us who are Australian, we still have so far to go to understand the first peoples of our land.

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Loved this book so much. Touching, gentle, erudite

Beautiful story, exquisitely written - absolutely loved it and it has stayed with me ever since I listened to it.

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Reflective, touching, insightful.

This novel is beautiful in the smallest of ways, like Della's honest observations of little details which pass many people by. It is also beautiful in the largest and most profound of ways - getting to the heart of what binds families and strangers together. Easy to listen to and get swept along with this story, there are also many truths to learn here in Behrendt's work.

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Beautiful

This is such a beautiful story of family, love, loss, racism, story and truth telling. The novel was wonderfully performed for this audiobook. It is very much worth listening to. I’m going to buy a print copy as well, this is a book that I will come back to time and again

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Touching Powerful Story

Loved the wonderful prose, the strong women (despite the sad , raw, reality of injustice) and it gave me an appreciation of a different culture. The backdrop of a literary tour set in England was not only interesting, but clever. Wonderful, loved it!

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Now this is one of my favourites

There are so many aspects of the story that I absolutely loved, Aunty Elaine's wisdom being reflected by both Della and Jasmine was a huge highlight. I really felt the emotion of the characters and I loved how that emotion connected in with the literary tour as well. Awesome read!

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Enjoyable story, realistic characters

Enjoyed this story, especially it's look at the characters and their reflections on various deep pain they had had in their lives. Insightful about grief. Good exploration of the relationship between this mother and daughter, and their different perspectives on various events of their lives, as well as nice bits of info about the writers mentioned on the tour. Quite a bit of comment on the author's view about racism, through the character's voices. Enjoyable, but not light fluff.

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.