From environmental activism, to defending the LGBTQIA+ community, to advocacting for First Nations Australians, the incredible work of these activists has helped drive progress in Australia and around the world. Now you can learn the stories behind them and their groundbreaking work with these insightful biographies and memoirs.

We Will Not Be Saved by Nemonte Nenquimo & Mitch Anderson

Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, Nemonte Nenquimo was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. Age 14, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city.

Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate-change activism. She has spearheaded the alliance of indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against Big Oil, protecting over a half million acres of primary rainforest.

In this astonishing memoir, she partners with her husband Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, to dig into generations of oral history, uproot centuries of conquest, and hack away at racist notions of Indigenous peoples.

If Everyone Cared Enough: Her Voice Reclaimed by Margaret Tucker

Margaret Lilardia Tucker MBE (affectionately known as Aunty Marge) was a significant Aboriginal activist and one of the first Aboriginal women to publish for mainstream audiences.

If Everyone Cared was a landmark publication in 1977, but in that first edition, her tone and content were significantly altered to placate non-Indigenous readers who were largely ignorant about the realities of settler invasion from a First Nations perspective. In this new edition, Margaret’s story is published as she wrote it. Drawing on the handwritten manuscript held in the collections of the National Library of Australia, If Everyone Cared Enough reclaims Aunty Marge’s original words, reinstating what was previously omitted.

This nationally important title shares the story of a brave, dedicated woman and her perseverance through a life of hardship towards the achievement of recognition for herself and her people.

Hana: The Audacity to be Free by Hana Assafiri

Hana Assafiri is a much loved and revered social activist and radical entrepreneur. Through the medium of food and dining in her now-renowned Moroccan Soup Bar, Hana has worked tirelessly to rectify the systemic and social barriers to women's empowerment.

Hana's memoir follows her childhood between Lebanon and Australia, her forced arranged marriage, her numerous attempts to escape, and her ensuing career in women's services. In 1998, she opened the Moroccan Soup Bar, which would quickly become an iconic Melbourne institution – founded on the radical notion that marginalised women, together in the kitchen, can effect social change.

Hana's reputation has flourished as an entrepreneur, feminist, and social activist. Her memoir is a call to arms, inviting readers to join her mission of empowerment, inspiration and progress. Hana serves as a testament to women's capacity to redefine their own freedom; and in doing so, shape a world where all of us can truly flourish and thrive.

John Büsst: Bohemian Artist and Saviour of Reef and Rainforest by Iain McCalman

Known to his enemies as ‘The Bingil Bay Bastard’, John Büsst, a Bendigo-born Melbourne bohemian artist, moved to tropical Bedarra Island in North Queensland and underwent an extraordinary transformation to become one of Australia’s most successful conservationists. In the 1960s and early 70s Büsst led campaigns to protect two of Australia’s most important and endangered environments – saving lowland rainforests from destruction and the Great Barrier Reef from reckless resource mining for oil, gas, cement and fertiliser. A plan Büsst likened to ‘bulldozing the Taj Mahal to make road gravel’.

This inspiring biography, from award-winning historian Iain McCalman, is a timely reminder that the passionate commitment of ordinary citizens is crucial to achieving truly transformative environmental change.

Personal Politics by Leigh Boucher, Barbara Baird, Michelle Arrow & Robert Reynolds

The achievement of marriage equality in Australia in 2017 was hailed by many as the crowning event of a fifty-year story of hard work by activists, which began with campaigns to decriminalise sex between men in the early 1970s. In that same five decades, feminist activism, including campaigns for abortion rights, the reform of family law and forms of welfare to support survivors of domestic violence, has similarly remade the rights and entitlements of Australian women. But has that story been one of continual progress and success?

Personal Politics brings together, for the first time, the voices and campaigns of a diverse set of activists who employed ideas about gender and sexuality to remake modern Australia.

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Tracker by Alexis Wright

Miles Franklin-winning author Alexis Wright has crafted a memoir in story form of the charismatic Indigenous leader, Tracker Tilmouth, and an epic portrait of a important period in the political life of Australia.

The legendary Indigenous activist ‘Tracker’ Tilmouth died in Darwin in 2015. Taken from his family as a child and brought up on a mission on Croker Island, he returned home to transform the world of Aboriginal politics. He worked tirelessly for Aboriginal self-determination, creating opportunities for land use and economic development in his many roles, including Director of the Central Land Council. He was a visionary and a projector of ideas, renowned for his irreverent humour and his colourful anecdotes.

Hope by Rosie Batty & Sue Smethurst

After tragedy, how do we find hope?

On a warm summer's evening in February 2014, eleven-year-old Luke Batty was killed by his father at cricket practice. It was a horrific act of family violence that shocked Australia.

The next morning, his mother Rosie bravely stood before the media. Her powerful and gut-wrenching words about family violence galvanised the nation and catapulted her into the spotlight. From that day on, Rosie Batty campaigned tirelessly to protect women and children, winning hearts and minds with her courage and compassion, singlehandedly changing the conversation around domestic violence in this country.

One of Them by Shaneel Lal

What would you do if you were told by the people you loved the most that the way you were born was evil and wrong? For Shaneel Lal, this was their reality from the time they were five. Growing up in a tiny, traditional village in Fiji, Shaneel faced condemnation from their family, and then 'therapy' from conservative elders in their village. Eventually the 'therapy' escalated to beatings and torture.

After escaping Fiji and moving to New Zealand as a teenager, Shaneel tried to keep their sexuality – and gender – to themself, but gradually found the courage to come out. One day, while Shaneel was volunteering at Auckland's Middlemore hospital, a church leader came up to them and offered to 'pray the gay away'. It was a lightbulb moment for Shaneel, who could not believe that the same practices that had scarred their childhood in Fiji were operating – and legal – in New Zealand.

Determined to ensure others wouldn't have to go through what happened to them, Shaneel founded the Conversion Therapy Action Group, which lead the movement to ban conversion therapy in Aotearoa.

Hine Toa by Ngahuia te Awekotuku

An incredible memoir by a trailblazing voice in women's, queer and Maori liberation movements.

In the 1950s, a young Ngahuia is fostered by a family who believe in hard work and community. Although close to her kuia, she craves more: she wants higher education and refined living. But her whānau dismiss her dreams.

In this fiery memoir about identity and belonging, Ngahuia te Awekotuku describes what was possible for a restless working-class girl from the pā. After moving to Auckland for university, Ngahuia advocates resistance as a founding member of Ngā Tamatoa and the Women's and Gay Liberation movements, becoming a critical voice in protests from Waitangi to the streets of Wellington.