Podcast: Cindy Solonec on Her Rich Cultural Heritage

Podcast: Cindy Solonec on Her Rich Cultural Heritage

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Dr. Cindy Solonec talks to Cheryl about her rich cultural Nigena, Spanish and English heritage, and how she turned her PhD thesis about her family history into her book Debesa.

About the author:

Dr. Cindy Solonec, a Nigena (Nyikina) woman from the West Kimberley, is married with two daughters and five grandchildren. She graduated with a PhD in History from UWA in 2016 and Debesa is a rewriting of her thesis that explored a social history in the West Kimberley based on the way her parents and extended family lived during the mid-1900s. As a university sessional staff member, Cindy lectures and tutors in addressing Aboriginal themes. She is a member of the History Council of Western Australia and she plays violin with Encore, a seniors’ all-strings orchestra.

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Reviews

Your Preview Verdict: Debesa by Cindy Solonec

Review | News | Preview

26 May 2021

Your Preview Verdict: Debesa by Cindy Solonec

    A Sweeping Family Saga: Read an Extract from Debesa by Dr. Cindy Solonec

    Review | Extract

    20 May 2021

    A Sweeping Family Saga: Read an Extract from Debesa by Dr. Cindy Solonec

      Inspiring and Powerful: Read our Review of Debesa by Cindy Solonec

      Review | Our Review

      18 May 2021

      Inspiring and Powerful: Read our Review of Debesa by Cindy Solonec

        Publisher details

        Debesa
        Author
        Cindy Solonec
        Publisher
        Magabala Books
        Genre
        Fiction
        Released
        01 May, 2021
        ISBN
        9781925936001

        Synopsis

        This extraordinary and heartfelt story chronicles the lives of the Rodriguez family of Debesa Station in the West Kimberley; their livelihood through difficult times, love of family, place and culture, and the challenges of day-to-day living on a small sheep station amid huge pastoral properties. Spanning four generations from the 1880s when the author’s maternal great-grandfather, Indian deckhand, Jimmy Casim, met and lived with Nigena woman, Lucy Muninga on Yeeda Station near Derby, Debesa centres on the unlikely partnership of Cindy’s parents: Frank Rodriguez, once a Benedictine novice monk from Spain, and Katie Fraser, who had been a novitiate in a very different sort of abbey – a convent for ‘black’ women at Beagle Bay Mission, 130 kilometres north of Broome. Together, Frank and Katie Rodriguez established Debesa, where Cindy and her three siblings grew up with the rich cultural heritage of their Spanish, Nigena and English ancestors.
        Cindy Solonec
        About the author

        Cindy Solonec

        Dr Cindy Solonec, a Nigena (Nyikina) woman from the West Kimberley, is married with two daughters and five grandchildren. She graduated with a PhD in History from UWA in 2016 and Debesa is a rewriting of her thesis that explored a social history in the West Kimberley based on the way her parents and extended family lived during the mid-1900s. As a university sessional staff member, Cindy lectures and tutors in addressing Aboriginal themes. She is a member of the History Council of Western Australia and she plays violin with Encore, a seniors’ all-strings orchestra.

        Books by Cindy Solonec

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