Woodwork
Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory - W
In those early seasons of the Wanderers, it was a marvel the people who came out of the woodwork to finally declare they were from the region.
It’s because of this connection to the team and club and area that I put Western Sydney in my biography. Out of all the places in the world, Western Sydney is home, Parramatta to be specific.
It was key to the writing of The House of Youssef and it’s right through all the other writing I have done since.
Parramatta is a mind city and a writer needs to be able to call upon a few at least. It gives the writing a quirky blended quality. Or to paraphrase the singular Jorge Luis Borges, people with access to two systems, two languages, two cultures, give rise to the most original literary fusion.
If Borges says it, then from me it’s an amen and enough said.
His essay I refer to repeatedly is The Argentine Writer and Tradition. It is found in the book Labyrinths.