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Interviews
This is my interview with Donna Williams
DONNA WILLIAMS:
Hi Nick. We met recently over email and you kindly sent me a copy of Hollywood, Amarroo. It’s a very provocative book.
Could you tell the readers a bit about what compelled you to write it?
NICK:
When I tell my friends that I wrote a book about Aborigines, they are startled. ‘Why write a book about Aborigines?’ they ask, ‘when you have a classical education and a science background.’ They short answer is the stories pick the writer and not the other way around.
The shorter answer is ‘Humanism’ because I deeply believe that if someone hurts, everyone hurts. If someone is killed in Iraq or Palm Island we mourn because our humanity is diminished. As Aborigines suffered so much pain for so long, I feel a strong emotional connection with them. I can’t imagine spending three years researching a topic and writing a book about people with whom I had no emotional connection.
DONNA WILLIAMS:
Nick, the 1970s were times unlike many of today’s youth would struggle to imagine.
Give us a feel for the 1970s. What was it like, what was happening in the world?
NICK:
While the cultural links between Australia and Great Britain remained intact, the links between Australia and the United States strengthened during WW2. After the war we opened our doors to European migrants, Japan became our most important trading partner and we joined our American allies in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 1972 the Whitlam government pulled our troops out of Vietnam.