The Archipelago of Us (Reneé Pettitt-Schipp, Fremantle Press)

Originally written as part of Reneé Pettitt-Schipp’s PhD thesis, The Archipelago of Us is a moving travel memoir mixed with a reflective story of trauma and healing. Pettitt-Schipp decided to move to Christmas Island in 2011 to teach the children of asylum seekers, then transferred to Cocos (Keeling) in 2012. The present moment of the narrative is 2016, when the author has returned to the islands as a way of dealing with her own past trauma. Some of the most heartbreaking scenes include Pettitt-Schipp taking an Afghan asylum seeker out of the detention centre to see the natural beauty of Christmas Island, and the author talking to a witness of the SIEV 221 Christmas Island boat disaster, which caused the deaths of 50 asylum seekers. She interviews a parks officer, who had to help Sri Lankan Tamils arriving at North Keeling Island in 2012. In impressive detail that shows a great depth of research, Pettitt-Schipp looks at the histories of the islands, including the Chinese indentured phosphate labourers and Malay coconut farmers employed by the Clunies-Ross family. The beauty of the natural environment—swimming with dolphins, visiting pristine coral reefs, seeing flying-fish, eels, crabs and clams—is juxtaposed against the dread of arriving military planes and Border Force ships, including those painted to look like Indonesian fishing vessels. The Archipelago of Us takes us on a fascinating trip across Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, while revealing the dark reality of Australia’s asylum seeker policies. It will make readers question the concept of Australian identity and the idea of a ‘fair go’.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Andrew Wrathall is digital producer at Books+Publishing. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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Category: Reviews