Meet the Author Ryan Butta

Published on 30 September 2022

Wangaratta Library is excited to host Ryan Butta, author of the gritty alternative history, The Ballad of Abdul Wade. 

In his writing, Butta exposes the untold debt Australia owes to the humble camel, and the Afghans who brought them here and drove them through the outback. 

Butta tells the story of young Afghan entrepreneur Abdul Wade who first brought his camel trains to the Australian outback in the 1890s. He was hailed as a hero by local communities who could not depend on the British and their horses that struggled to access remote settlements – especially those stricken by flood or drought. The camel trains rode to the rescue time and time again. 

But with success came fierce opposition fuelled by prejudice, and in a climate of colonial misinformation, hyperbole and fear, Wade, along with other Afghans involved in the camel business, found himself a target when his business threatened the livelihoods of the European horse drivers.  

The anti-Afghan movement took off, propelled by union leaders and politicians of the time. Yet all the while, for those in need, the ships of the desert continued to appear on the outback horizon. 

Butta stumbled on this fascinating forgotten history when visiting his father’s hometown of Brewarrina in north-west New South Wales in 2018. Flicking through the pages of a local history of the town, his interest was piqued by a 19th-century photo of a camel train, and he soon found himself on the trail of Australia’s earliest Afghan camel drivers.  

Told with flair and authority, The Ballad of Abdul Wade, interrogates why some characters have been written out of history and defies the standard horse-powered folklore to reveal a hitherto unknown episode of Australian pioneering history. 

Join Ryan Butta at Wangaratta Library on Friday 7 October at 10.30am. Bookings are essential and can be made by contacting library staff at library@wangaratta.vic.gov.au or 03 5721 2366.