2025 marks the 50th anniversary of NAIDOC week: an annual celebration to recognise and honor Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture, achievements, and resilience. Of course, actualising a future where Indigenous voices are not only heard but lead the way requires much more than just a week.
Self-education is a crucial way we can centre First Nations stories, experience, and knowledge in our lives. That’s why we’re making space on our to-be-read list this July and beyond for these rich and award-winning novels by First Nations authors.
Fiction
I Am Nannertgarrook by Tasma Walton
In her second novel, Tasma Walton tells the heart-wrenching true story of her ancestor, Nannertgarrook. Kidnapped by sealers and enslaved far from her homeland, Nannertgarrook must keep that family and her old life alive in her mind, even when she is subjected to the worst of humanity. A gripping tale that explores the power of maternal love against pitiless odds.
Shop now: Available at Readings, $34.99
Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko
Wise-cracking Kerry Salter is part of an Aboriginal family living on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. She has spent a lifetime avoiding two things - her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying and she's an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Gritty and darkly hilarious, Too Much Lip offers redemption and forgiveness where neither seemed possible.
Shop now: Available at UQP, $24.99
The Yield by Tara June Winch
August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for 10 years when she learns of her grandfather’s death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land – a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river.
Shop now: Available at Readings, $22.99
The White Girl by Tony Birch
For 13 years, Odette has quietly raised her granddaughter without drawing notice from welfare authorities who remove fair-skinned Aboriginal children from their families. But the arrival of a new policeman with cruel eyes and a rigid by-the-book attitude throws the Brown women's lives off-kilter. It will take all of Odette's courage and cunning to save Sissy from the authorities, and maybe even lead her to find her daughter. The White Girl is a reminder that hope and love have no limits.
Shop now: Available at Abbey's Bookshop, $24.99
Red Dust Running by Anita Heiss
Beloved author Anita Heiss returns to the world of rom-com in her latest novel Red Dust Running. When Annabelle flees the wreckage of her last relationship, she returns home to Brisbane to launch and curate a First Nations gallery—convinced she won’t let romance get in the way of her career this time. But when Annabelle meets Dusty Davies: bona fide cowboy on a birthday trip to the rodeo with her tiddas, she’s forced to decide whether she’s willing to compromise for love.
Shop now: Available at Readings, $22.99
After Story by Larissa Behrendt
When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother Della on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past. As Jasmine immerses herself in the world of her literary idols— including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and Virginia Woolf —Della is inspired to rediscover the wisdom of her own culture and storytelling. But sometimes the stories that are not told can become too great to bear.
Shop now: Available at UQP, $24.99
Non-Fiction And Poetry
Returning by Kirli Saunders
This new collection of poems and artwork by Gunai woman Kirli Saunders offers an intimate look into Kirli’s life during times of global and local uncertainty and loss. Written in the backdrop of the pandemic, bushfires, floods and the global Black Lives Matter movement, Returning is an exploration of Country, history, queerness, kinship and self-determination. 45 written works are paired with an array of artworks in watercolour, digital imagery, weaving, hand-crafted possum cloaks and ink on hand-dyed silk in what has been described as a “poetic odyssey.”
Shop now: Available at Magabala Books $29.99
CryBaby by Mabel Gibson
CryBaby marks Yamatji author Mabel Gibson‘s first collection of micro memoir. This highly anticipated work explores 56 dreamy and fragmented moments, chronicling Mabel’s life from the age of two to 25. CryBaby tells the story of a young First Nations woman who finds her voice and strength as a writer, in the wake of unimaginable personal challenges and grief.
Shop now: Available at Night Parrot Press, $24.99
Fire Country: How Indigenous Fire Management Could Help Save Australia by Victor Steffensen
A powerful account from Indigenous land management expert, Victor Steffensen, on how the revival of cultural burning practices, and improved 'reading' of country, could help to restore our land. Developed over many generations, this knowledge shows clearly that Australia actually needs fire. Moreover, fire is an important part of a holistic approach to the environment, and when burning is done in a carefully considered manner, this ensures proper land care and healing.
Shop now: Available at Abbey’s Bookstore, $32.99
She Is Earth by Ali Cobby Eckermann
A luminous new verse novel from celebrated poet Ali Cobby Eckermann. It charts a journey through grief and celebrates the healing power of Country. We follow Eckermann’s soft footfalls in the open (but far from empty) spaces between earth and sky; from sandstone to wetlands, from plains to mountain ranges.
Shop now: Available at Magabala Books, $27.99
Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen
An interrogation of the complexities of colonial and personal history with an alternately playful, tender, and mournful intertextual voice, deftly navigating the responsibilities that gather from sovereign country, the spectres of memory, and the debris of settler-coloniality.
Shop now: Available at UQP, $24.99
Comments