Summary

The yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land. In the language of the Wiradjuri yield is the things you give to, the movement, the space between things – baayanha.

Knowing that he will soon die, Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind.

August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather's death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land - a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river.

Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch's The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.

The novel includes a dictionary of Wiradjuri language, compiled by Uncle Stan Grant Snr and John Rudder.

Winner of the 2020 Miles Franklin award
Book of the Year(2020 NSW Premier's Literary Awards)
Winner 2020 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
People's Choice award (2020 NSW Premier's Literary Awards)
Shortlisted for the Stella Prize
Longlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards

A ground-breaking and wholly original work of fiction by one of our most exciting contemporary writers.

— Judges at the 2020 NSW Premier's Literary Awards