Publisher's synopsis
A groundbreaking collection of work from some of the great Australian Aboriginal writers, theMacquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature offers a rich panorama of over 200 years of Aboriginal culture, history and life.
From Bennelong’s 1796 letter to contemporary creative writers, Anita Heiss and Peter Minter have selected work that represents the range and depth of Aboriginal writing in English. The anthology includes journalism, petitions and political letters from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as major works that reflect the blossoming of Aboriginal poetry, prose and drama from the mid–twentieth century onwards. Literature has been used as a powerful political tool by Aboriginal people in a political system which renders them largely voiceless. These works chronicle the ongoing suffering of dispossession, but also the resilience of Aboriginal people across the country, and the hope and joy in their lives.
With some of the best, most distinctive writing produced in Australia, this anthology is invaluable for anyone interested in Aboriginal writing and culture.
‘This volume is extremely significant from an Indigenous cultural perspective, containing many works that afford the reader a treasured insight into the Indigenous cultural world of Australia.’ – From the foreword by Mick Dodson
The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature is published as part of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature project.
Awards
Winner 2008 Deadly Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Literature
Dr Anita Heiss is an internationally published, award-winning author of 23 books; non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction and children’s novels. She is a proud member of the Wiradyuri Nation of central New South Wales, an Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the GO Foundation, and Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland. Anita is also the Publisher at Large of Bundyi, an imprint of Simon & Schuster cultivating First Nations talent, and a board member of the National Justice Project and Circa Contemporary Circus. As an artist in residence at La Boite Theatre, she adapted her novel Tiddas for the stage. It premiered at the 2022 Brisbane Festival and was produced by Belvoir St for the Sydney Festival in 2024.
Her novel, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, about the Great Flood of Gundagai, won the 2022 NSW Premier’s Indigenous Writer’s Prize and was shortlisted for the 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize and the 2022 ABIA Awards. Anita’s first children’s picture book is Bidhi Galing (Big Rain), also about the Great Flood of Gundagai. Anita enjoys running, eating chocolate and being a creative disruptor.
Photo by Morgan Roberts, courtesy of Simon & Schuster
Peter Minter is a prize-winning poet, editor and reviewer. He is the author of several collections of poetry including blue grass, Empty Texas and Rhythm in a Dorsal Fin, was the editor of the Varuna New Poetry series, a founding editor of Cordite Poetry and Poetics Review and co-editor of Calyx: 30 Contemporary Australian Poets. From 2000 to 2005 he was poetry editor of Meanjin, and guest editor of two special issues. He lectures in Indigenous Studies and Poetics at the Koori Centre.
