Cirrus@Austlit

The moving story of an Indigenous woman who beat disadvantage and violence to become one of Australia's most influential political voices.

'Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was nine months pregnant and due to give birth the night she attended her high school formal. With her baby tucked in her arms, she completed year 12 from her hospital bed. Early in their relationship, she took her future husband, Colin, to the Alice Springs morgue to identify the body of a family member who'd been killed.

'Nothing about the life of this passionate and steely Warlpiri woman could ever be described as ordinary.

'In this remarkable memoir, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price candidly recalls her journey from the remote outback communities of Yuendumu and Alice Springs in the Northern Territory - a young girl with big dreams and the red dust of her ancestors under her fingernails - to the corridors of Canberra and beyond.

'Honest, raw and at times heartbreaking, Matters of the Heart is a deeply personal reflection of how a young Indigenous woman, growing up surrounded by violence and tragedy, beat the odds to become one of the most powerful political voices of our time.

''I've been to hell and back, and I've survived.''  (Publication summary)

'Of the few Indigenous Australian languages still spoken as a first language, Warlpiri is one of the most alive. My people have an earthy, often self-deprecating sense of humour. Their profound linguistic awareness leads them to invent hilarious jokes about their constant mispronunciation of English, and other Aboriginal languages, as well as the mispronunciation of Warlpiri by tin-eared English-speakers. As with any language there are rules around politeness, obscenity and sacrilege. However, once those rules are observed words become playthings to be used to produce wit and humour. My favourite examples are probably unpublishable in a literary magazine. Clever and funny but too politically incorrect.' (Introduction)