Explore nonfiction from First Nation Australians
We're currently in the midst of NAIDOC week, celebrating the culture, legacy and ongoing contributions of Australia's First Nations peoples. To help readers of all cultures and backgrounds engage with this year's theme of 'Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud & Proud', we've curated a selection of books that explore aspects of First Nations culture and self expression – from traditional ways of telling story and engaging with Country, to the incredible work and legacy of Indigenous Australian artists, and recipes that make native ingredients exciting and accessible.
Discover these compelling works of nonfiction below, but if fiction is more your thing, you can also check out our blog for recommended novels and poetry from First Nations authors.
Culture & Criticism
Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
From our staff review: 'Sand Talk is an engaging and singular introduction to the elements of Indigenous Knowledge, thinking, and methods of communication that Yunkaporta is in a position to share. It’s an opportunity to recognise these concepts and their history, and a generous invitation to incorporate these methods into non-Indigenous thinking for the benefit of all. It’s an unforgettable book, rich with ideas and inspiring in its conviction in the human capacity for personal change and growth. Open it to any page, read and enjoy.'
Yunkaporta further explores how contemporary Australia can learn from Indigenous thinking in his second book, Right Story, Wrong Story.
Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity by Ellen van Neerven
From our staff review: 'This extraordinary blend of cultural studies, memoir and poetry explores a broad spectrum of subjects centred around sport and identity. With their first book of nonfiction, award-winning writer Ellen van Neerven casts a wide net over subjects as varied as the history of First Nations sports, health outcomes, desire, gender, equal pay, sovereignty, climate catastrophe and more. Threaded throughout is van Neerven’s own personal history and relationship with the sport of soccer: how the game served as a conduit for their personal expression when they were a young player on Turrbal and Jagera land, and how that love was complicated by their experiences growing up as a queer, First Nations person.'
Telling edited by Sina Summers
The 12 short life stories in Telling are grounded in First Nations storytelling traditions and reveal the diverse and complex nature of the experience of living in the wake of colonialisation . . . These stories are from all over Australia. Each Elder reflects on intergenerational trauma, Stolen Generations, reconnection and resistance, demonstrating their deeply felt Black pride and joy and celebrating their stories of survival.
Aunty Yvonne Luke recounts her reconnection to Alyawerre country after several generations of removal. Koori leader Uncle Mik Edwards describs his brave story of survival after being removed forcibly from his family in 1967, and Marion Hansen tells of her surprise at being crowned Miss NAIDOC in 1969.
Songspirals by the Gay'wu Group of Women
Aboriginal Australians are the longest-surviving human culture on earth, and at the heart of Aboriginal culture is song. These ancient narratives of landscape have often been described as a means of navigating across vast distances without a map, but they are much, much more; songspirals are sung to awaken Country, to make and remake the life-giving connections between people and place.
Songspirals are radically different ways of understanding the relationship people can have with the landscape. For Yolngu people from North East Arnhem Land, women and men play different roles in bringing songlines to life, yet the vast majority of what has been published is about men’s songlines. Songspirals is a rare opportunity for outsiders to experience Aboriginal women’s role in crying the songlines in a very authentic and direct form.
Welcome to Country by Marcia Langton
From our staff review: 'Academic Marcia Langton has produced the perfect book for people who want to know more about our rich Indigenous history. Ostensibly a travel guide, it’s also an introduction to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, culture, and places of interest.
Whether you just want to find out more about where you live or you want to plan a trip, this is a wonderful guide to culture and places. Beautifully produced and illustrated, it’s equally at home on the shelf or in the glove box.'
First Nations Artists
Vincent Namatjira by Vincent Namatjira
Vincent Namatjira is an astute observer of life, of power, of popular culture. To be in the presence of a Vincent Namatjira painting is like being on the edge of a portal into another world. From the first page of this monograph, Vincent takes us on a journey through his artwork, contextualising his iconic series on Indigenous soldiers, Indigenous leaders, power and the Royal Family, giving us an insight into his world view.
The book includes essays by Lisa Slade, Nici Cumpston and Gloria Strzelecki from AGSA, by Bruce Johnson McLean from NGA and by Vincent's great friends and artistic collaborators Ben Quilty and Tony Albert but, most importantly, it is Vincent's voice as much as his artwork that resonates in high definition on the page.
mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri, a monograph of Judy Watson
Judy Watson is one of Australia's most globally collected and exhibited artists. Her practice is centred on truth-telling as a Waanyi woman, particularly in relation to environmental protection; historic government policies concerning Indigenous Australians; and collecting institutions that house cultural material often acquired under distressing circumstances.
This beautifully designed hard-cover book features an in-depth examination of Watson's practice and biography by curator Katina Davidson, a creative response to Watson's work by Wiradjuri poet Jazz Money, and a map of north-west Queensland and photographs of sites of significance to aid audience's understanding of the connections between Watson's work and Country.
Iwantja by Iwantja Artists
Located on a small ridge at the edge of the Indulkana Ranges, approximately 575 kilometres south of Alice Springs, Iwantja Arts art centre is home to some of Australia's most exciting Indigenous art.
The art centre, a studio collective where the artists meet, socialise and make art, was founded in the 1980s when many Aboriginal communities were fighting for land rights. Told through the artists' own words, this searing bilingual publication charts the history of Indulkana from being one of the first pastoral leases in the region to the culturally rich creative hub it is today. Iwantja is a showstopping monograph of the Anangu artists everyone needs to know.
Emily Kam Kngwarray edited by Kelli Cole, Hettie Perkins & Jennifer Green
Emily Kam Kngwarray celebrates the timeless art of a pre-eminent Australian artist and one of the most significant painters of the 20th century. An Anmatyerr woman from Central Australia, Kngwarray devoted the last decades of her life to new artistic pursuits, creating works that encapsulate the experience and authority she gained throughout an extraordinary life.
This book offers new insights into Emily Kam Kngwarray’s life and work, featuring original research and reflections from the artist’s community, curators and academics.
Dot Circle and Frame: The Making of Papunya Tula art by John Kean
The course of Australian art changed in 1971. Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Johnny Warangula Tjupurrula were central to the formulation of a radical new form of desert art. Standing out among an exceptional cohort of painting men at Papunya (a remote government settlement in Central Australia) this 'gang of four' closely related artists deployed their inherited iconography while exploring poetic possibilities offered by paint on canvas. Each was responsible for innovations that still influence contemporary desert art.
This lavishly illustrated book draws on social history, visual anthropology, as well as formal art analysis to identify how the key innovations that informed contemporary desert art were realised. Dot, Circle and Frame examines the lived experience and totemic associations of the artists to show just how a new vision of ceremony and Country was assembled.
Food & Cooking
Warndu Mai by Damien Coulthard & Rebecca Sullivan
In this gorgeous illustrated, informative and contemporary cookbook and compendium of native foods, Adnyamathanha and Dieri man Damien Coulthard and his wife, Rebecca Sullivan, show you how to create truly Australian food and drinks at home.
With a few small adjustments and a little experimentation you can prepare delicious food that is better for the Australian environment, is more sustainable and celebrates the amazing ingredients that are truly local.
Mabu Mabu: An Australian Kitchen Cookbook by Nornie Bero
In Mabu Mabu, charismatic First Nations chef Nornie Bero champions the tastes of native flavours in everyday cooking by unlocking the secrets of Australian herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits.
This book – called mabu mabu, which means help yourself – reflects Nornie’s approach to cooking: simple, accessible, delicious, and colourful! Her native pantry (explored in a comprehensive glossary of native ingredients) includes seeds, succulents, nuts, plants and herbs, and her recipes range from Pumpkin and Wattleseed damper (for which she's well known) to Kangaroo Tail Bourguignon to Saltbush Butter, Quandong Relish, Pickled Karkalla and Pulled Wild Boar.
First Nations Food Companion by Damien Coulthard & Rebecca Sullivan
Welcome to a food-lover’s guidebook to the First Foods of this continent. Including an informative guide to more than 60 of the most accessible Indigenous ingredients, including their flavour profiles, along with tips for how to buy, grow and store them.
After that, 100 delicious recipes: all featuring native ingredients, and including tips for substituting more commonplace pantry ingredients where needed - including Bush-Tomato Cheese on Toast, Anise Myrtle and Macadamia Poached Chicken, Myrtle Tea Cake, Quandong and Davidson’s Plum Iced Vovos and more.
