This year's theme for the International Day of World's Indigenous Peoples is the role of Indigenous women in the preservation and transmission of traditional knowledge. This theme acknowledges that ‘despite the crucial role indigenous women play in their communities as breadwinners, caretakers, knowledge keepers, leaders and human rights defenders, they often suffer from intersecting levels of discrimination on the basis of gender, class, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.’
In line with celebrating this observance, below are three powerful books by Indigenous women from around the world.
WINNER OF THE JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER OF THE MITOQ BEST FIRST BOOK OF FICTION
WINNER OF THE NGAIO MARSH AWARD FOR BEST CRIME NOVEL
aue
(verb) to cry, howl, groan, wail, bawl. (interjection) expression of astonishment or distress.Taukiri was born into sorrow. Aue can be heard in the sound of the sea he loves and hates, and in the music he draws out of the guitar that was his father’s. It spills out of the gang violence that killed his father and sent his mother into hiding, and the shame he feels about abandoning his eight-year-old brother to a violent home.
But Taukiri’s brother,…
WINNER OF THE 2022 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
WINNER OF THE 2022 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD FOR INDIGENOUS WRITING
SHORTLISTED FOR THE DOUGLAS STEWART PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
The story of an Aboriginal woman who worked as a police officer and fought for justice both within and beyond the Australian police force.
A proud Gunai/Kurnai woman, Veronica Gorrie grew up dauntless, full of cheek and a fierce sense of justice. After watching her friends and family suffer under a deeply compromised law-enforcement system, Gorrie signed up for training to become one of a rare few Aboriginal police…
The bestselling true-crime investigation by the author of All Our Relations.
In 1966, twelve-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks of a northern Canadian city after running away from residential school. An inquest was called, and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied.
More than thirty years later, between 2000 and 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Each of them was hundreds of miles away from family, forced to leave home and live in a foreign, unwelcoming city in order to…
Becky Manawatu
Becky Manawatu (Ngai Tahu) was born in Nelson, raised in Waimangaroa,…
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Veronica Gorrie
Veronica Gorrie is a Gunai/Kurnai woman who lives and writes in…
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Tanya Talaga
Tanya Talaga is the acclaimed author of Seven Fallen Feathers, a…
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