Connections: ‘The belburd’ by Nardi Simpson

The new novel by award-winning Yuwaalaraay singer and writer Nardi Simpson is tricky to describe. It is unlike any book I have read.

There are two narratives within the book, seemingly disparate but actually closely connected. There is the story of Ginny, a young poet trying to make sense of her world and her place in it. She writes poems and ‘plants’ them around her environment, literally planting them with some soil and a little water as she moves around her neighbourhood.

Then there is the being whose experience as a birth spirit is told in first person. ‘Sprite’ is rolling around in Eel Mother’s belly, meeting other spirits who are waiting to be born, and those who did not make it or do not survive.

The two narratives connect when we realise that Sprite and the other birth spirits see all. From this, we can perhaps understand that everything and everyone are connected, from times past into the future.

It is a fascinating way to introduce readers to a view of the world and the spirit that is very different from mainstream Western thought and traditions.

For this reason, it is a book to come to with an open heart and an open mind, and let the ideas and language wash over you, absorbing their meaning without trying to.

The belburd is published by Hachette in October 2024.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an early copy to review.