Aboriginal culture

The essay discusses Brimming Billabongs, ‘the first Aboriginal “autobiography”, albeit simulated, but also the first fictional narrative to rely upon an Aboriginal character as a focalising persona’ (55).

A dear friend of mine and Kath's wrote the poem that follows. I think it is a lovely poem and I thank Eileen for writing it and hope you enjoy reading it. (Eileen's grandmother and Kath's grandmother were sisters.)

I first came across Oodgeroo's writing in 1965. I was living in Nigeria at the time, where Australia hardly entered one's consciousness. The slim volume of poems We Are Going shocked me into an awareness of the plight of the…

The past and history have been foregrounded in Aboriginal consciousness as issues that demand attention whereas the history of white Australia has often been taken for granted. Because they are a minority group Aboriginal people's history was, until the 1960s…