Andrew Marr discusses Australia’s cultural heritage with the prize-winning authors Thomas Keneally and Kate Grenville, and the opera singer and composer Deborah Cheetham. Keneally has embarked on a history of Australia through its people: from convicts and Aborigines, settlers and bushrangers, patriots and reformers, and he builds up a picture of the country’s unique national character. For her latest trilogy Kate Grenville delves back into Australia’s history and the first three generations of white settlement, to explore the complex relationship contemporary Australians have with the past. Deborah Cheetham is one of the country’s “Stolen Generation”, taken from her Aboriginal family when she was months old and fostered in a white community. She discusses how she has mined her lost heritage for her latest composition.
Produced by Katy Hickman.
