Bitin' Back is a rollicking comic novel that nimbly blends the realities of smalltown prejudice and racial intolerance. When the Blackouts' star player Nevil Dooley wakes one morning to don a frock and 'eyeshada', his mother's idle days at the bingo hall are gone forever. Bitin' Back is the winner of the 2000 David Unaipon Award for unpublished Aboriginal writers. Cleven's novel has been described as one of the most achieved manuscripts to come from the twelve year old Unaipon Award to-date.
