Past Programs
Indigenous - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander - 2008
Melissa Lucashenko on survival
16/10/2008
In the second in this year's '3 Writers' Sydney PEN lecture series novelist and essayist Melissa Lucashenko looks at what we mean by survival, both historically and in the modern world. Is survival a sign of strength or is it just about hanging on?
Writers as Readers: Samuel Wagan Watson Read Transcript
13/08/2008
At this year's Sydney Writers' Festival a number of prominent Australian authors gave us a tour of their bookshelves. On The Book Show we've heard from Christos Tsiolkas, Luke Davies and Helen Garner. Today Indigenous poet Samuel Wagan Watson discusses his influences, not so much from his bookshelves as from his CD rack.
Samuel Wagan Watson grew up in a political household during the Bjelke-Petersen years in Queensland. His father, Sam Watson, was a prominent Aboriginal activist. The young Samuel listened to Janis Joplin and the Doobie Brothers, but when he said he wanted to be a rock star, his father was not impressed.
Samuel Wagan Watson never fulfilled his musical dreams, but turned his lyrical gifts to poetry. In 2005 he won the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award for Poetry for his collection Smoke Encrypted Whispers.
Historian Jonathan Richards Read Transcript
11/03/2008
Jonathan Richards' new book The Secret War: A True History of Queensland's Native Police is the result of ten years research into the world of this group of armed men who operated on the state's frontier in the 19th century. More paramilitary organisation than police force, the native police was made up of mounted Aboriginal troopers under the command of white officers, who usually had a background in the British Army. Their role was to 'disperse' troublesome groups of Aborigines. Jonathan Richards tells Peter Mares what he discovered about the real meaning of 'dispersal'.
