Cirrus@Austlit

'First Nations biographical writing has come a long way since 1968, the year W. E. H. Stanner proposed that the ‘life and times’ of figures such as ‘David Unaipon, Albert Namatjira, Robert Tudawali, Durmugam, Douglas Nicholls, Dexter Daniels and many others’ should be added to the annals of Australian history to illustrate ‘the other side of a story over which the great Australian silence reigns’.1 New biographies by Bain Attwood and Henry Reynolds and Nicholas Clements have deservedly drawn acclaim as outstanding additions to Australian historiography, while also illustrating the potential of biographical writing to illuminate important episodes in Australian history. First Nations biographical writing has flourished over the years since Stanner’s lectures, although perhaps not as he might have anticipated.' (Introduction)