Bidhi Galing: Big Rain

Description

Powerful and moving, Bidhi Galing (Big Rain) celebrates the Wiradyuri heroes of the Great Flood of Gundagai in 1852, told through the eyes of a young girl who is rescued from the raging floodwaters by her father. Wagadhaany grew up near the Marrambidya Bila. She loved dancing in the rain and listening to her father, Yarri, tell her stories about life on Wiradyuri ngurambang. When white people started building on the floodplains, Yarri was worried. He knew the power of the bila and tried to warn the strangers, but they would not listen. Years later, when the big rains came, Yarri and his brother, Jacky Jacky, jumped into their bark canoes and paddled through raging floodwaters, risking their lives to save countless others. Anita Heiss's powerful text, accompanied by Samantha Campbell's evocative illustrations, is a gift of Wiradyuri culture, knowledge and language, sharing a resonant message for our times.

Dr Anita Heiss is an award-winning author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women's fiction, children's novels and blogs. She is a proud member of the Wiradyuri Nation of central New South Wales, an Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, the GO Foundation and Worawa Aboriginal College. Anita is a board member of University of Queensland Press and Circa Contemporary Circus, and is a Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland. As an artist in residence at La Boite Theatre in 2020, Anita began adapting her novel Tiddas (S&S, 2014) for the stage. Her novel Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms (S&S, 2016) set in Cowra during World War II, was the 2020 University of Canberra Book of the Year. Anita enjoys eating chocolate, running and being a 'creative disruptor'.