First Nations, also known as Indigenous Australians, are the original inhabitants of the lands now known as Australia. They have a rich and diverse culture, with a long history of storytelling and oral tradition.
We believe that reading books by Australian First Nations authors is an important way to learn about and appreciate the unique perspectives and experiences of Indigenous peoples.
Check out our top picks below that will introduce you to a variety of Australian First Nations books, ranging from picture books for children to novels for adults.
Tell Me Why by Archie Roach
A powerful memoir of a true Australian legend: stolen child, musical and lyrical genius, and leader.
Not many have lived as many lives as Archie Roach – stolen child, seeker, teenage alcoholic, lover, father, musical and lyrical genius, and leader – but it took him almost a lifetime to find out who he really was.
Tell Me Why is a stunning account of resilience and the strength of spirit – and of a great love story.
Tell Me Again by Dr Amy Thunig
The most inspirational and important memoir of 2022
In this remarkable memoir, Amy Thunig narrates her journey through childhood and adolescence, growing up with parents who struggled with addiction and incarceration. She reveals the importance of extended family and community networks when your immediate loved ones are dealing with endemic poverty and intergenerational trauma. In recounting her experiences, she shows how the stories we tell about ourselves can help to shape and sustain us.
Above all, she shows that joy and love exist in spaces that are often dehumanised or overlooked, proving that life can be rich and full of beauty even when things are – in many ways – terrible. Tell Me Again will captivate, move and inspire readers with its candour, lack of self-pity and insight.
Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen
An innovative collection of poetry and prose from a vibrant new Indigenous voice on the Australian literary scene.
This fierce debut from award-winning writer Evelyn Araluen confronts the tropes and iconography of an unreconciled nation with biting satire and lyrical fury.
Dropbear interrogates the complexities of colonial and personal history with an alternately playful, tender and mournful intertextual voice, deftly navigating the responsibilities that gather from sovereign country, the spectres of memory, and the debris of settler-coloniality.
Come Together by Isaiah Firebrace, Jaelyn Biumaiwai
Come Together is a heart-warming, debut picture book for children aged 5 and up from pop artist Isaiah Firebrace, inspired by his petition to the Australian Government calling for Aboriginal history to be taught in every classroom.
In this essential book, Isaiah, a Yorta Yorta and Gunditjmara man, establishes a foundation of First Nations knowledge with 20 key topics. Alongside bright and contemporary illustrations by Mununjali and Fijian artist Jaelyn Biumaiwai, Isaiah connects us to each topic through his own personal story and culture, from the importance of Elders to the Dreaming.
The Yield by Tara June Winch
Knowing that he will soon die, Albert ‘Poppy’ Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind.
August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather’s death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land – a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river.
Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch’s The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.
Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
This remarkable book is about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, sex and science and spirits to Schrodinger’s cat.
Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently?
Sand Talk provides a template for living. It’s about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everybody and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things.
This All Come Back Now by Mykaela Saunders
The first-ever anthology of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speculative fiction – written, curated, edited and designed by blackfellas, for blackfellas and about blackfellas.
In these stories, ‘this all come back’: all those things that have been taken from us, that we collectively mourn the loss of, or attempt to recover and revive, as well as those that we thought we’d gotten rid of, that are always returning to haunt and hound us.
Dear Son by Thomas Mayor
Dear Son shares heartfelt letters written by First Nations men about life, masculinity, love, culture and racism.
Along with his own vivid and poignant prose and poetry, author and editor Thomas Mayor invites 12 contributors to write a letter to their son, father or nephew, bringing together a range of perspectives that offers the greatest celebration of First Nations manhood.
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About the Contributor
Kassidy Fisher
Kass is Booktopia's resident Comms and Social Media Specialist. She spends her day scrolling TikTok, picking up the latest trends, and posting content. When she isn't on social media, you can find her on BookTok, reading the latest contemporary romance, or playing with her dog, Leia.
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Comments
January 20, 2023 at 1:45 am
Nice collection of books.