person or book cover
Photo courtesy UQP.
Doris Pilkington Garimara Doris Pilkington Garimara i(A24850 works by) (a.k.a. Nugi Garimara Pilkington; Doris Garimara Pilkington; Doris Pilkington)
Also writes as: Nugi Garimara
Born: Established: 1937 Pilbara area, North Western Australia, Western Australia, ; Died: Ceased: 10 Apr 2014 Perth, Western Australia,
Gender: Female
Heritage: Aboriginal ; Aboriginal Mardu/Martu
(Storyteller) assertion
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Works By

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1 2 From Follow The Rabbit-Proof Fence (Chapter 5 : Jigalong, 1907 - 1931) Doris Pilkington Garimara , 2008 extract biography (Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence)
— Appears in: Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature 2008; (p. 168-173) Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature 2009; (p. 895-900)
1 Red Dirt Forever: Perth to the Pilbara Doris Pilkington Garimara , 2008 single work short story biography
— Appears in: The Sun Herald , 25 January 2008; (p. 12)
1 The Stolen Generations : Rites of Passage : Doris Pilkington interviewed by Anne Brewster Doris Pilkington Garimara , Anne Brewster (interviewer), 2007 single work interview
— Appears in: The Journal of Commonwealth Literature , vol. 42 no. 1 2007; (p. 143-159)

'Doris Pilkington discusses how she researched and wrote her first three books, Caprice (1991), Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996) and Under the Wintamarra Tree (2002) and the impetus behind them. She talks about the making and the impact of Philip Noyce’s film Rabbit Proof Fence. Her main topic is the Stolen Generations, and her own experience of growing up in Moore River Mission and Roelands Mission. She discusses the impact of child removal on her own family and the continuing legacy of this experience generally in Aboriginal families and communities. She talks about the Journey of Healing and the role that spirituality (which has developed for her from the interaction of Christianity and indigenous spirituality) has played in her own life.'

Source: Sage publications.

1 4 y separately published work icon Home to Mother Doris Pilkington Garimara , Janice Lyndon (illustrator), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2006 Z1265739 2006 single work biography children's Molly, Gracey and Daisy are on the run, determined to escape the confinement of a government institution for Aboriginal children removed from their families. Barefoot, without provisions or maps, tracked by Native Police and search planes, the girls follow the rabbit-proof fence 1,600 kilometres north, knowing it would lead them home. Source: Publisher's blurb.
1 Caprice Doris Pilkington Garimara , 2003 extract novel (Caprice : A Stockman's Daughter)
— Appears in: Fresh Cuttings : A Celebration of Fiction and Poetry From UQP's Black Writing Series 2003; (p. 69-82)
2 9 y separately published work icon Under the Wintamarra Tree Doris Pilkington Garimara , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2002 6013129 2002 single work life story autobiography

'Doris Pilkington Garimara was born on traditional birthing ground under a wintamarra tree. This is her life story which follows on from her mother, Molly Craig's story in ~Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence. Doris begins with the basic migration of her Mardu ancestors from the Western Australian desert to the cattle stations and settlements on its fringes.

Generations later, living in a workers' camp with her family on Balfour Downs Station, three-year old Doris' life is forever changed when she is removed by authorities to Moore River Native Settlement. This institution, for children judged to be identifiably of mixed race, was the place Molly had so famously escaped from a decade before.

The life of an institutional orphan, as seen through the eyes of a child, is movingly revealed... Leaving behind the regimentation of assigned routines and endless regulations, Doris goes to Perth to train as a nurse's aide but the racist culture of an institutional upbringing leaves an indelible mistrust of her own people. This is the obstacle she has to overcome when as a wife and mother she makes the courageous but difficult choice to find her mother and father, and to begin the journey to reclaim her Mardu heritage.' Source: Publisher's blurb

1 The Hurtful Legacy of Racism Doris Pilkington Garimara , 2000 single work essay
— Appears in: Those Who Remain Will Always Remember : An Anthology of Aboriginal Writing 2000; (p. 158-161)
1 Bambaru Banaka Doris Pilkington Garimara , 2000 single work life story
— Appears in: Those Who Remain Will Always Remember : An Anthology of Aboriginal Writing 2000; (p. 106-118)
11 76 y separately published work icon Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence Doris Pilkington Garimara , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1996 Z126936 1996 single work biography (taught in 26 units)

'The film Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on this true account of Doris Nugi Garimara Pilkington's mother Molly, who as a young girl led her two sisters on an extraordinary 1,600 kilometre walk home. Under Western Australia's invidious removal policy of the 1930s, the girls were taken from their Aboriginal family at Jigalong on the edge of the Little Sandy Desert, and transported halfway across the state to the Native Settlement at Moore River, north of Perth...

The three girls - aged 8, 11 and 14 - managed to escape from the settlement's repressive conditions and brutal treatment. Barefoot without provisions or maps, they set out to find the rabbit-proof fence, knowing it passed near their home in the north. Tracked by native police and search planes, they hid in terror, surviving on bush tucker, desperate to return to the world they knew.

The journey to freedom - longer than many of the legendary walks of [the Australian nation's] explorer heroes... told from family recollections, letters between the authorities and the Aboriginal Protector, and ... newspaper reports of the runaway children.' Source: Publisher's blurb

1 12 y separately published work icon Caprice : A Stockman's Daughter Doris Pilkington Garimara , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1991 Z152202 1991 single work novel

'A fictional account of one woman's journey to find her family and heritage, Caprice won the 1990 David Unaipon Award for unpublished Indigenous writers. Its publication marked the beginning of Doris Pilkington Garimara's illustrious writing career.

Set in the towns, pastoral stations and orphanage-styled institutions of Western Australia, this story brings together the lives of three generations of Mardu women. The narrator Kate begins her journey with the story of her grandmother Lucy, a domestic servant, then traces the short and tragic life of her mother Peggy.

Kate was born into the institutionalised world of the Settlement, taught Christian doctrine and trained for a career as a domestic. Gradually and painfully she sheds this narrowly prescribed identity, as she sets out on the pilgrimage home.' (Source: Publisher's blurb)

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