At the End of the Rainbow - Josip Kirigin

At the End of the Rainbow PDF Download 

Forty three years after it was first published, Josip Kirigin’s biographical novel about migrant life on the WA goldfields, Na kraju duge (At the End of the Rainbow) has been translated into English.

Josip Kirigin, a celebrated Croatian journalist and author, was born in Boulder City in 1918, and spent his boyhood there. His father had arrived in the goldfields from Dalmatia in 1903 and, after a hard working life underground, died of silicosis in 1927. As a result, Josip (aged nine) then returned to Dalmatia with his mother, Jelena.

At the End of the Rainbow paints a raw and engaging picture of life in Boulder through the eyes of Josip as a child. The Kirigin family lived opposite the infamous Cornwall Hotel in Dwyer St, South Boulder, a watering hole popular with local Slav and Italian communities. Their day-to-day struggles bore witness to a milieu of illicit activities and shifting allegiances.

Kirigin’s novel also chronicles the tragic destinies of his siblings, who remained in WA eking out a living across the wheatbelt and in Perth. Filled with rich interior rumination upon the turbulent migrant experience and the travails of crafting a life, the narrative is fuelled by Josip’s quest (including a 1971 return visit to WA) to discover missing family jigsaw pieces.

The novel’s investigative genealogies and narrative arc reveal the real-world consequences for the children of migrant families split apart in the pursuit of a better life ‘at the end of the rainbow’.

The English translation by Perth-based Coral Petkovich was initiated by Josip’s son Dr Branko Kirigin in Split, Croatia. Contact Josip’s great-niece Denise Corrigan (denise.corrigan@me.com) in Sydney for further information. An archive of Josip’s work including unpublished novels, stories, essays, diaries and photographs is held at the Hvar Heritage Museum on the island of Hvar, Croatia.

Free to read and download with permission from Branko Kirigin.