Cirrus@Austlit

Shoemaker's primary concern is to look at the beginning of 'black people's' writing in Australia since the 1960s and focus on the nascent literary canon emerging through Aboriginal writing. Shoemaker moves the readership through non-Aboriginal authors such as Katharine Susannah Prichard (1929) and Xavier Herbert (1938) in a chapter entitled 'Popular Perceptions of Unpopular People to Progress and Frustrated Expectations: The Era Since 1961'. Where Aboriginal writing begins, for Shoemaker's purposes, is an area of literary production he describes as 'fourth world literature'.

'Collection of short stories by the author of To Ride a Cock Horse', winner of the 1989 South East Asian and South Pacific First Book Award in the British Commonwealth Writers Prize. The stories are linked together by the river Fineflour and its place in the lives of the characters through successive generations.' (Publication summary)

'This is the first collection to span the diverse range of Black Australian writings. Thirty-six Aboriginal and Islander authors have contributed, including David Unaipon, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Gerry Bostock, Ruby Langford, Robert Bropho, Jack Davis, Hyllus Maris, William Ferguson, Sally Morgan, Mudrooroo Narogin and Archie Weller. Many more are represented through community writings such as petitions and letters.

Collected over six years from all the states and territories of Australia, Paperbark ranges widely across time and genre from the 1840s to the present, from transcriptions of oral literature to rock opera. Prose, poetry, song, drama and polemic are accompanied by the selected artworks of Jimmy Pike, and an extensive, up-to-date bibliography.The voices of Black Australia speak with passion and power in this challenging and important anthology.' Source: Publisher's blurb.

'When 18-year-old Danny Clark asks the beautiful Joanna Johnson out on a date, he tells her he owns a Jaguar car, a car he certainly doesn't have, and a car he feels he now must buy to 'prove he isn't lying'. But Danny is ripped-off by an unscrupulous used-car salesman, and when normal avenues of recourse fail, Danny and his mates take revenge on the car yard.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 18/3/2014)

'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fictional account of one woman's journey to find her family and heritage, Caprice won the 1990 David Unaipon Award for unpublished Indigenous writers.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)

'From the riotous picnic races to the famous Mt Isa rodeo, from childhood in the yumba to gutsy outback pubs, Unbranded presents a strikingly original vision of Australia. With a rollicking cast of stockmen, shearers, barmaids and tourists, this novel is the story of three men. Sandy is a white man; Bindi, a Murri; Mulga is related on his mother's side to Bindi, and on his Irish father's side to Sandy. Their saga . and enduring friendship . covers forty years in the mulga country of the far west. It tells how Sandy achieves his dream of owning a cattle empire; how Bindi regains part of his tribal lands for his people, and how Mulga finally sits down to write about their shared experiences. Mulga's journey also brings him face-to-face with the dark side of urban despair and his people's struggle with alcohol...' (Source: WorldCat website)

'Third English language collection of poems by a Greek-Australian writer. Contains new as well as previously published work. The other two collections are 'Falcon Drinking' and 'Portrait of a Dog'.' (Publication summary)

'The Dyirbal people of the Cairns rainforest region in North Queensland have a rich heritage of song poetry, reflecting their way of life, their way of looking at the world, and their way of coping with invasion. This pioneering study examines the words and music of 174 songs, across five distinctive styles of performance, each with its own metrical pattern and linguistic and musical characteristics, describing the social context in which the songs were sung and explaining their message.

As sung by nineteen Dyirbal singers, this collection explores the poetic tradition of a culture which flourished in Australia long before European impact. As a detailed record of an ancient and disappearing literary tradition, it is invaluable. For language and music specialists it provides the unique vocabulary and grammatical patterning so characterisitc of Aboriginal song'. (Source: Back cover, UQP 1996 edition)

'Winner 1998 NSW Premier's Australian History Award. Also shortlisted in the 1998 Kibble and Dobbie Awards, and the 1997 Age Book of the Year selection. "An erudic, beautifully researched work of history which knits together the stories of Paraquay and Australian emigration as a quest for Utopia." Judges' comment - 1998 NSW Premiers Award. In the 1890s a brave band of ordinary Australians sailed out through Sydney Heads, to found a socialist Utopia in South America. Under the charismatic William Lane, over 500 settlers created a "New Australia" in the Paraguayan jungle. Their hopes soon collapsed in turmoil. many, including Mary Gilmore, returned home. Others stayed on wit their families, learning Spanish and the Indian language and becoming part of the culture of their adopted country. These descendants of socialists also endured the longest surviving right-wing dictatorship in the Western hemisphere.' (Publication summary)