Tracks: A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback Study Guide

Robyn Davidson was born in Queensland, Australia and grew up on a cattle station. Tracks hints at her difficult childhood; her mother died by suicide when Davidson was 11 years old and she was later sent to girls’ boarding school in Brisbane. She was 26 years old when she undertook her trek through the desert, and she became a celebrity upon the publication of Tracks in 1980. She has since had an extensive career as a travel writer, often focusing on her time spent with various nomadic peoples. She has also published another memoir, an essay collection, and a novel. Davidson currently lives in London, India, and Australia.

Tracks is closely tied to the sociopolitical context of late 1970s Australia, as well as its national history more generally. Davidson’s decision to go on her trek springs in part from her dissatisfaction with the superficial preoccupations of modern life, as well as her feminist belief that she is capable of more than the limiting gender roles that her society prescribes to women. Additionally, her experiences with and reflections on the Aboriginal communities she encounters relate to the broader oppression of Aboriginal people and the pervasive racism against them. The 1960s and 1970s saw a wave of activism in favor of returning land rights to Aboriginal groups that had been colonized, but most major legislation toward making these rights a reality did not occur until the 1980s. Although Davidson is not directly involved in the Aboriginal Land Rights movement, her journey takes place against the backdrop of its tensions and she witnesses the burden placed on Aboriginal people by racial biases and systemic oppression.

Tracks is part of a long tradition of adventure memoirs, many of which involve novice adventurers setting out on a journey to find meaning in life or heal past pain. Tracks is often compared to Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild, though it predates Wild by several decades. Tracks is also related to other works about the Australian outback and Aboriginal traditions, including The Songlines by Davidson’s friend Bruce Chatwin. The influence of Tracks also guided Davidson’s later books, most notably her second memoir Desert Places, which follows her year living with a nomadic tribe on the border between India and Pakistan.