Past Programs
Books - 2008
2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003
A long way alright: Doris Pilkington
30/08/2008
Aunty Doris Pilkington is probably best known for writing a homecoming story like no other in Australian literature. But Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence is more than just a story. Since it was published, Doris Pilkington has gone on to write its sequel, her own story - Under the Wintamarra Tree - which she tells in the third person. Her personal journey is almost as epic as that of her mother, Molly Craig. From her birth tree on a pastoral station deep in the Western Desert, Doris Pilkington has come a long way alright.
Writing black - and red
14/06/2008
We present a talk by two award-winning female Aboriginal writers. Gayle Kennedy is from the Wongaibon clan of the Ngiyaampa speaking people of south-western New South Wales and Cherie Dimaline is Metis and Ojibway from Canada.
They talk about writing about Indigenous lives at the Sydney Writers Festival.
Gayle Kennedy won the David Unaipon award for her manuscript which has since been published as Me, Antman and Fleabag which bristles with delicious black humour. Cherie Dimaline's novel Red Rooms won best fiction book at the 2007 Anskohk Aboriginal Literature Festival and Book Awards and has been described as the 'Native Rosetta stone'.
Also, Gordon Hookey speaks to his confronting and deeply political work at the inaugural Indigenous Art Triennial - and we mark the 20th anniversary of the Barunga Statement, which set out the guiding principles for a treaty.
Kinship stories
31/05/2008
Kinship is defined as the biological and cultural relationships we inherit through birth. In Aboriginal culture, these bonds run deep - extending like rivulets across the continent. Ali Cobby Eckermann's life has been shaped by her journey to discover her Aboriginal family, while the late Ngarrindjeri senior woman Doreen Kartinyeri once described kinship as her life's passion.
In this program Ali Cobby Eckermann talks about finding her birth mother after more than 30 years - as well as her relationship with her son, who like herself, had been adopted out. Klynton Wanganeen remembers the life of his mother, Doreen Kartinyeri and Jennifer Martiniello reads her poem Birthing Cloth, about the kinship bonds between generations of Arrernte women.
The healing power of stories
24/05/2008
William Munget was presumed drowned when the pearling boat Enid sank off the coast of north-western Australia in 1928. Many years later and on the other side of the continent, six of the 12 children of Nugget and Mary Edwards were kidnapped by police acting on the advice of government welfare authorities. These two stories illustrate the power that memory and loss exercise over our lives, the deep love of family across the generations and the need for healing.
Heartsick for Country: Pat Dudgeon
Pat Dudgeon is from the Bardi people of the Kimberley region in north-western Australia. A psychologist who's just completed her doctoral thesis, Pat is one of the contributing writers to a new anthology about country and the spirituality of place. Her story is an evocation of the mysterious death at sea of her great-grandfather, William Munget, a pearler whose boat sank off the north-west coast in 1928. 'The sinking of the Enid' skilfully combines oral history and documentary evidence from the files of the WA Department of Native Affairs. In this program, Pat reads from her story and talks about the role of psychology in healing.
Songlines of a Mutti Mutti Man: Kutcha and Mick Edwards
Kutcha Edwards was 18 months old when he and five of his brothers and sisters were 'kidnapped' by police who were acting on the advice of government welfare authorities. As a family and as individuals, their lives were permanently fractured. Even though they were reunited years later with their mother Mary, the damage had already been done. The production Songlines of a Mutti Mutti Man is literally set around a kitchen table. Kutcha and his older brother Mick talk about the show's return season and their unbroken family songline.
The Aboriginal voice - the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature
17/05/2008
What defines Aboriginal literature? Is it history and politics or are black writers now free to exercise their creativity in works of the imagination?
Anita Heiss and Peter Minter have edited a new anthology which, in a chronological way, documents the Aboriginal voice - from a plaintive letter that Bennelong wrote in 1796 after his return from England to the work of more contemporary writers like Kim Scott and Alexis Wright.
'We can never have enough stories': a conversation with Sally Morgan
03/05/2008
It's been more than 20 years since Sally Morgan wrote My Place, a memoir of her search for identity. It was an unexpected hit with the Australian public and is now even a prescribed text in schools.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Sally Morgan speaks about a new anthology she's edited, Heartsick for Country, the protection of rock art sites in the Pilbara threatened by mining and her personal journey since My Place was first published.
My activist grandfather
05/04/2008
It was the first political organisation to represent the interests of Aboriginal people, but the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association has long been forgotten. Now, Professor John Maynard has produced For Liberty and Freedom, a history of the AAPA and its founder, Fred Maynard.
John Maynard joins us to talk about his activist grandfather.
Also, the writer Sharon Ennis muses about identity, self-loathing and internal racism. And we go to the opening of 'Lines in the Sand', an exhibition which features the work of Daniel Boyd.
Marcia Langton: a new agenda for Indigenous relations
15/03/2008
We present a talk by Professor Marcia Langton, who's just written an essay for the Griffith Review in which she argues that the everyday suffering of Aboriginal people has become a kind of visual and intellectual pornography.
Also today, writers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada talk about their craft. Anita Heiss and Briar Grace-Smith talk about Indigenous identity in a multicultural world and young hip hop artists, Manik 1derful, Simon Reese and Chillie give a sample of their beatbox sound mixed with Canadian Indian influences.
Frontier stories
16/02/2008
Frontier stories from Queensland's Gulf country to the Kimberley - Alexis Wright reads from her Miles Franklin Award-winning novel Carpentaria and Ningali Lawford-Wolf talks about the new play which recreates the life of Jandamarra, a legendary hero of the Bunuba people of the Fitzroy River valley.
