Ruby Moonlight

Teacher Resource

Publisher's synopsis

A verse novel that centres around the impact of colonisation in mid-north South Australia around 1880. Ruby, refugee of a massacre, shelters in the woods where she befriends an Irishman trapper. The poems convey how fear of discovery is overcome by the need for human contact, which, in a tense unravelling of events, is forcibly challenged by an Aboriginal lawman. The natural world is richly observed and Ruby’s courtship is measured by the turning of the seasons.

Awards

Winner, 2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Book of the Year
Winner, 2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize
Winner, 2012 black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship
Winner, 2012 Deadly Awards, Outstanding Achievement in Literature

Other Recommended Titles

The Garret: Ruby Moonlight

Inside My Mother

My People: A Kath Walker Collection

Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance

Ali Cobby Eckermann

Ali Cobby Eckermann’s first collections of poetry little bit long time and Kami (2010) both quickly sold out their first print runs. Her verse novel His Father’s Eyes was published by OUP in 2011. Her second verse novel Ruby Moonlight won the inaugural kuril dhagun National Manuscript Editing Award and the 2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry and Book of the Year Award. In 2017, Ali won the Windham-Campbell prize, worth AUD$215,000.

Photo courtesy of Giramondo Publishing

These innovative poems take up traditional narrative voices, bringing past conflicts vividly to life with short lines that are lucid, refined, and luminous... The writing is delicate yet strong, the tone is pitched so well the reader is not distracted by the agile technique that carries the narrative forward.

Judges' Citation, New South Wales Book of the Year Award

Further Details

Author Ali Cobby Eckermann

Publisher Magabala Books

Date of Publication 2012

ISBN 9781921248511

Category Poetry, Young Adult

SCIS number

5472487