Marlo Morgan · 1991 · survival

Marlo Morgan's 1991 book, presented as the memoir of an American woman taken on a months-long walkabout across the Australian desert by a group of Aboriginal people she calls the Real People. It became a worldwide bestseller, but is widely regarded as fabricated, and has been strongly condemned by Aboriginal communities as a damaging misrepresentation of their cultures. Read as fiction, it traces a long foot journey from the west coast, deep into the Outback, and finally back to the sea. The route is necessarily approximate.

1. 1
   Perth

   An American woman living in Australia is summoned, blindfolded and driven into the bush to join a band of desert Aboriginal people.

2. 2
   The Western Desert

   On foot for months across the burning Outback, living on what the land provides, in a walkabout that doubles as an initiation.

3. 3
   The Northern Coast

   The long crossing ends, at last, at the sea on the far side of the continent.