In this sense, I wanted to explore the idea of being both attached to and estranged from landscape from an Anglo-Australian perspective. However, both of my characters are actually European imports and not distinctly aboriginal (though Ty does display an affinity and respect for the Walmajarri tribe that he grew up with). When Gemma says that “they kind of stole you too” she is linking Ty’s childhood experience of being stolen by the authorities to her own experience of being stolen by Ty, and yet she is inadvertently linking Ty’s experience to the forcible removal of the Stolen Generation from the Great Sandy Desert. And there is an allegorical link to the Stolen Generation. However, the book is about similar issues that may be associated with the Stolen Generation’s trauma those of belonging and being forcibly removed from a childhood landscape…the idea of a person being displaced within an Australian landscape.
Obviously the word ‘stolen’ has huge connotations in Australia and I was initially concerned that Australian readers may think the book was about the Stolen Generation, which it’s not. I thought long and hard about using ‘Stolen’ as a title.
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