Name: Paris Savages
Rating: 4 (1 reviews)
ISBN: 9780749026127

Katherine Johnson

Fraser Island, 1882. In the wake of brutal massacres, three Badtjala people agree to go to Europe to perform to huge crowds and hopefully bring their plight to the Queen of England.

The Heartbreaking Story of Love and Injustice

Paris Savages

This one of those stories that need to be told and remembered but is extremely unsettling and frustrating to read. It is perhaps unsurprising that a theme in the book is the exploration of who is actually the titular savage - the Europeans or the Badtjala. Is savagery the lack of the trappings of European culture or is it the exploitation and dehumanization of the Other? Is a man who hopes to secure his people's independence, health, and safety truly more frightening than the people who threaten those qualities in the pursuit of luxuries? 

This book is unsettling precisely because it is based on true events, because these events shaped how non-Europeans are still viewed and treated in the West. Human zoos are a horrendous fact of history that any discussion of racism and exoticism needs to remember. 

I appreciate that, as a white woman herself, Johnson wrote from the point of view of a German teen whose father brought the three Badtjala to Europe, rather than from the point of view of one of the Badtjala. It's an acknowledgment of her outsider status in telling this story. But it does leave me wanting to hear directly from the Badjtala and other groups that were subjected to experiences like this. I especially plan to look up Own Voices reviews of this book to see how it was received.

Paris Savages The Heartbreaking Story of Love and Injustice

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