Books to Read this NAIDOC Week 2021: Heal Country
NAIDOC Week is a chance to reflect and celebrate First Nation’s rich cultural heritage and this year’s theme is a call to develop a deeper respect and understanding for Country and place.
You probably don’t need us to convince you of the power of books to change, shape and heal our thinking. While NAIDOC is a chance to reflect, it’s also an opportunity to renew our efforts to acknowledge and learn from the Traditional Owners of the land we call home.
Here are a few of our favourite reads to help you do that this NAIDOC Week and beyond.
Fiction
Born into This by Adam Thompson
Born into This (2021) is the debut collection from Adam Thompson, an emerging Aboriginal (pakana) writer from Tasmania. These sixteen short stories are wild, sharp and incredibly nuanced. Thompson writes boldly about the colonial Australia we live in now, with no margin left empty. Many of Thompson’s stories use the backdrop of homeland and Tasmania to build a strong sense of place, traversing land and sea. The Australia he writes about is set in the modern-day, but the historical and longstanding attachment to place is never far from many of his characters’ minds. Check out our review here.
Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson
This novel was described by Melissa Lucashenko as "philosophy" at the Sydney Writers Festival this year, and Simpson's exploration of knowledge, land and existence is deep, lyrical and powerful. It explores the story of three generations of the Billymil family, who live in the 'gateway town' of Darnmoor. Relations between the town's Indigenous inhabitants and settlers is fraught and amid rapid social and environmental change, long-buried secrets are uncovered. It is "a lament to choice and change, and the unyielding land that sustains us all, if only we could listen to it."
Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko
Kerry Salter has spent a lifetime avoiding two things - her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying, and she's an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Kerry plans to keep her distance but quickly discovers Bundjalung country has a way of grabbing hold with both hands and refusing to let go. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river. Gritty, dark, and unexpectedly hilarious, Too Much Lip (2020) offers redemption and forgiveness even where none seems possible.
Nonfiction
Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta
A remarkable book about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, sex and science and spirits to Schrödinger’s cat. Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective and asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? Sand Talk (2019) is about how lines, symbols and shapes help us make sense of the world, how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everybody and, more importantly, listening carefully.
Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
Dark Emu (2014) explores a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer label for Aboriginal people in Australia, revealing evidence that Aboriginal people were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer label. Pascoe eloquently challenges this as a convenient lie, putting forth the argument that almost all the evidence comes from the diaries of Australian explorers - hardly impeccable sources. Dark Emu calls for acknowledgment of the powerful wisdom of First Nations people who have been diligently caring for and living within Country for millennia.
True Tracks by Dr Terri Janke
In True Tracks (2021), Dr Terri Janke provides invaluable information on how to engage both respectfully and ethically with Indigenous knowledges and cultures. Aimed at leaders and professionals across many industries -from the creative, to the sciences, tourism and more - she uses both personal stories and case studies to answers questions about engaging with Indigenous culture, knowledge, language and communities.
Poetry
Guwayu, for all times: a collection of First Nations poems edited by Dr Jeanine Leane
Guwayu, for all times is a groundbreaking collection from Red Room Poetry, covering the past 16 years of First Nations poetry in Australia. Showcasing both new and established poets, it has been described as "a radical literary intervention for its breadth of representation, temporal depth and diversity of language."
Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen
Dropbear (2021), the debut collection of poetry, essay and memoir from Evelyn Araluen, is a sparkling clear and powerful negotiation of language and identity. Using a backdrop of Australiana kitsch and mythology, Araluen picks apart colonist narratives and the damaging impact they have had, and continue to have, on the culture, history and language of First Nations people.
Blackwork by Alison Whittaker
Blackwork (2018) is a powerful and experimental mix of poetry, short fiction, memoir, satire and critique. Described as "original and unapologetic" Whittaker interrogates colonisation and Aboriginal rights in Australia, exploring the strength of past generations and her own coming of age. Similar to her previous collection Lemons in the Chicken Wire (2016), Blackwork experiments linguistically with language and discourse, using both English and Gomeroi words, to become "one of the key books in our current Aboriginal literary and linguistic renaissance."
Elaine Mead is a freelance writer and book reviewer, currently residing in Hobart, Tasmania. She is passionate about the ways we can use literature to learn from our experiences to become more authentic versions of ourselves and obsessed with showing you photos of her Dachshund puppy. You can find her online under www.wordswithelaine.com.
