All guides: NAIDOC Week 2024: Books

Books by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Authors based in Victoria

A selection of books by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders authors based in the State of Victoria.

Lies, Damned Lies by Claire Coleman 2021
Claire G. Coleman, a proud Noongar woman, takes the reader on a journey through the past, present and future of Australia, lensed through her own experience. Beautifully written, this literary work blends the personal with the political, offering readers an insight into the stark reality of the ongoing trauma of Australia’s violent colonisation.
Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe 2018
Bruce Pascoe was born in 1947 in Melbourne, Australia. He is an Indigenous writer. His latest books include Fog a Dox (winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards in 2013), Convincing Ground, Dark Emu, and Mrs Whitlam. He received the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize, Joint Winner. In 2018, he won the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright 2023
In a small town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in following the dance of butterflies and scouring the internet to find out how she can seek repatriation for her Aboriginal/Chinese family to China.
Women & children (audio book) by Tony Birch 2023
A powerful, personal novel about women, children and justice, from one of this country's most loved and clear-eyed storytellers. It's 1965 and Joe Cluny is living in a working-class suburb with his mum, Marion, and sister, Ruby, spending his days trying to avoid trouble with the nuns at the local Catholic primary school. One evening his Aunty Oona appears on the doorstep, distressed and needing somewhere to stay.

NEW Online Library resources

NEW online resources

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resources
Explore all the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander online resources that have been added to RMIT Library in the last 3 months.
The latest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resources
Check out the most recently (2022-2023) published Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resources you can access from the Library.

A reading list (limited to the previous 10 years) Civil rights for Aboriginal Australians

Civil Rights

See titles related to Aboriginal Civil Rights via this Library Search list of books (limited to the previous 10 years) Civil rights for Aboriginal Australians

The Queen is Dead by Stan Grant, 2023
It is worn on our skin. It is scarred in memory. The Queen reigned for seventy years. She came to the throne at the height of Empire and died with the world at a tipping point. What comes next after the death of what Stan Grant calls 'the last white Queen'?
Not Just Black and White by Lesley Williams, Tammy Williams, 2015
Just Black and White is an extraordinary memoir about two women determined to make sure history is not forgotten.

Literature by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors

Here is a link to a search for adult fiction by Indigenous Australian authors (limited to the last 10 years).

Burn by Melanie Saward, 2023
A poignant and powerful novel about a fire-obsessed Indigenous boy living on the margins.
Blacklight : ten years of First Nations storytelling by Hannah Donnelly, 2022
Blacklight: Ten Years of First Nations Storytelling is a definitive anthology of writing produced entirely by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creatives from Western Sydney and beyond.
Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven; Alison Whittaker, 2023
Over three parts, van Neerven takes traditional storytelling and gives it a unique, contemporary twist.
Maar bidi: next generation black writing by Kim Scott, Elfie Shiosaki, Linda Martin, 2020
maar bidi is a journey into what it is to be young, a person of colour and a minority in divergent and conflicting worlds.
The Window Seat by Archie Weller, 2024
The Window Seat is a collection of Archie Weller's best fiction and a tribute to his contribution to Australian literature.

Children's Books

Hiere is a filtered Library Search showing children's books on Indigenous culture. Some of the titles are featured below.

Our Home, Our Heartbeat by Adam Briggs, K B Moon, Rachael Sarra, 2022
This book is a celebration of past and present Indigenous legends, as well as emerging generations, and at its heart honours the oldest continuous culture on Earth.
My Deadly Boots by Hakea Hustler; Carl Merrison; Samantha Campbell (Illustrator) 2023
Spikes on the bottom boots, my favourite colour boots, making me too deadly. Can the shoes on your feet really make you jump higher? Walk taller? Dream bigger?
My Culture and Me by Gregg Dreise 2019
Feel the rhythm of the music, from your heart down to your feet. Enjoy the movements of melodies, as clapsticks keep a strong beat. This is my culture. This is me.
Sorry Day by Coral Vass, Dub Leffler, 2018
There was a hum of excitement. Flags flickered in the breeze as Maggie's heart danced. Maggie holds tight to her mother as they await the long anticipated apology. A retelling of the day when the then Prime Minister of Australia acknowledged the sorrows of past and said sorry to the generation of children who were taken from their homes.
Backyard Footy by Carl Merrison, 2023
Jy is playing football alone in his small backyard in the Kimberley, but when he accidentally kicks the ball over the fence, a footy adventure begins! Footy by yourself is fun but playing with mates is better.

Some New Arts Titles

Defying Empire by Tina Baum, 2017
The 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia commemorates the 50th anniversary of 1967 Referendum that recognised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Australians for the first time.
Crosscurrents in Australian First Nations and Non-Indigenous Art by Sarah Scott (Editor); Helen McDonald (Editor); Caroline Jordan (Editor) 2023
This edited collection examines art resulting from cross-cultural interactions between Australian First Nations and non-Indigenous people, from the British invasion to today.
Collective Movements by Kate ten Buuren (Editor); Maya Hodge (Editor) 2022
Collective Movements is a wide-ranging project focusing on the work of historic and contemporary First Nations creative practitioners and community groups in south-eastern Australia that recognises collectivity as integral to Indigenous knowledges and ways of being.
Shakespeare on the Noongar stage : language revival and Hecate by Clint Bracknell, Kylie Farmer, Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company,2024
Hecate is the first adaptation of a complete Shakespeare play in one Aboriginal language of Australia.
Between waves by Jessica Clark, 2023
Curated by Jessica Clark, Between Waves presents ten major new commissions traversing internal and external worlds, embracing the sensory and cyclical rhythms of light and sound, thinking and feeling, listening and seeing, interwoven with ideas of material memory.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art by Gretchen M. Stolte, 2020
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art explores the effects of Queensland government policies on urban First Nation artists.
Tiwi Textiles by Diana Wood Conroy 2022
Tiwi Textiles: Design, Making, Process tells the story of the innovative Tiwi Design centre on Bathurst Island in northern Australia, dedicated to the production of hand-printed fabrics featuring Indigenous designs, from the 1970s to today

Library subject guides

NAIDOC Week 2024