Cirrus@Austlit

'Walking into Sydney’s iconic Abbey’s Bookshop, I noticed a prominent display of books devoted to the campaign to recognise Indigenous peoples in the Australian Constitution. Some of the books were new to me; all were written with great care and doubtless published for the moment. Marcia Langton’s The Welcome to Country Handbook: A guide to Indigenous Australia wasn’t among them, perhaps because of its newness, perhaps because it transcends the moment, its title signposting a broader remit. Langton’s wide-ranging knowledge, irrepressible curiosity, and longstanding engagement with culture, education, and politics bring a breadth to the work that few others could offer.' (Introduction)

'In his memoir’s final chapter, Vince Copley wonders: if the first legal marriage of an Aboriginal woman and a white man had been socially accepted in the 1850s, would his own wife have been spared being pushed to the end of the 1970s bank queue because she was with him, a blackfella? Would that real estate agent have considered their application instead of throwing it straight in the bin? Would their daughter have been spared the schoolyard bullying and their son the name-calling?' (Introduction)   

'Eddie Koiki Mabo and others made the High Court of Australia recognise in 1992 that terra nullius – nobody’s land – was a fiction. It is taking us longer to kill off its lesser-known cousin, vox nullius. Vox can mean sound, word or voice; ideas of us – us being Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples – having no voice are part of an enduring colonial imaginary.' (Introduction)

'IT IS EARLY evening. The family is together at the home Mum bought and paid for with cash savings squirrelled away over many years. All four of her daughters are present. Aunts, Uncles, cousins too. And, most importantly, our nana – Mum’s mother.' (Introduction)

'In 1985, I started a bachelor’s degree the month I turned seventeen. Despite a change of degree from social work to arts, I graduated from the University of Queensland with publication and research experience at twenty and became a permanent policy research officer in the Australian Public Service by twenty-one. In four years I had gone from a country Queensland school leaver to a public servant in the head office of Aboriginal Hostels Limited, producing research reports with strategic and operational impact on its accommodation and support services.' (Introduction)

'The book contains works of fiction about playing in a Hawthorn Grand Final, personal articles about significant places in their lives and letters to their heroes such as their dads, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali and Adelaide Crows star Eddie Betts.' (Source: National Indigenous Times online, 13 July 2016)

'In a tiny cinema in the Latin Quarter of Paris, something very unusual for French filmgoers is on display. For five days, the programme at Cinema La Clef is devoted not to the latest Hollywood blockbusters, nor to the finest French cinema, but to the best examples of Australian Indigenous film-making.'

'The first Festival of Australian Aboriginal Cinema (La Festival du Cinéma Aborigène Australien) will showcase films that may have garnered awards at Cannes, but are nonetheless unfamiliar to audiences in one of the world’s capitals of cinematic culture. It is the first festival of its kind in Europe.'

'If resilience is a hallmark of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s survival beyond centuries of colonisation and oppression, brandishing the pen – or any its modern equivalents– can be understood as key resilience and survival strategy. Writing ourselves into contemporary and future existence is a complex act of cultural translation; it involves a speaking to others through a technology from a foreign culture. Subsequently, Indigenous writing is born into complexity.

Source: Abstract.