WILDCAT FALLING by Mudrooroo (Angus &...

WILDCAT FALLING by Mudrooroo (Angus & Robertson/HarperCollins: $10; 131 pp., paperback original); WILDCAT SCREAMING by Mudrooroo (Angus & Robertson/Harper Collins: $11; 142 pp., paperback original). When it appeared in 1965, “Wildcat Falling” was the first novel published by an Aboriginal author in Australia. The terse first-person narrative reveals the thoughts of a bright, vaguely ambitious teen-ager of mixed Caucasian and Aboriginal ancestry who chafes at the limits a racist society imposes on him. Unwilling to become a menial flunky but barred from any meaningful career, Wildcat turns to crime. In prison, he finds the acceptance and social status the outside world denies him, a situation that forces him to choose between security and freedom. When Mudrooroo returned to Wildcat’s plight 27 years later, his respect for traditional Aboriginal culture had grown. In “Screaming,” Wildcat learns wisdom from the totemic animals in Dreamtime songs. Inspired by these visions, he begins to forge an identity that transcends prison, an identity that will enable him to lead other disenfranchised young men. Available in this country for the first time, Mudrooroo’s powerful, angry prose offers American readers visions of harsh reality and mystic strength.