Yarrawonga author and jeweller, Dominic Fotia’s debut novel, Burning on Australian Soil.
Burning on Australian Soil is Yarrawonga author and jeweller, Dominic Fotia’s first published novel, reviewed here by Angela Stevenson, an award-winning journalist and feature writer with Australian Flying and Flight Safety Magazine.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
This often heart-wrenching novel of an Afghan family navigating their vastly different Australian life is an occasionally tough read. It tells a chronology of events and challenges that unknowingly weave the family into an unfathomable tragedy; and it certainly caused this reader more than a few moments of reflection.
The story is remarkable; unfolding over years and told through a number of believable and engaging central characters. The depth of humanity in the storytelling, from a daughter’s devastating youthful first-love to a family’s tightly-held religious and cultural beliefs and the complex challenges of a minority community, Burning on Australian Soil exposes Fotia as a writer of insight, both with substance and heart.
Dominic Fotia says he wanted to write a story of contemporary Australia.
Although the content is occasionally dramatic, Fotia’s style feels unusual in that, either by design or accident, it leaves the reader space for introspection with such raw and difficult subjects. Don’t expect to be ‘transported’ to another place with purposeful prose or paragraphs of descriptive verbiage, rather to be both engaged and kept at arm’s length - as if you’re an observer given time to reflect.
This book may not be everyone’s idea of a ‘good read’, but I would suggest everyone should read it. It offers not-often-heard insights into inter-generational and societal clashes of culture, religion and expectations in such real, almost touchable detail that it reads like a fascinating, fictionalised ‘lived-experience’.
Fotia tells me there’s to be a sequel - of this I am glad. I look forward to exploring some of the interesting story threads further.
For a debut novel, as a read, I’d give this a solid 8/10; my limited concerns being editorial in nature. I can only imagine that a professionally edited sequel could iron some of those out. Not of a genre this avid reader would normally choose, however, I can say I definitely learned a lot.
Burning on Australian Soil is available locally at Yarrawonga News and Gifts, Kelly’s Books, Dominique’s Jewellers or online at www.hybridpublishers.com.au.
