AustLit

The David Unaipon Award was inaugurated in 1988 by University of Queensland Press. Awarded to the best writing of the year by an unpublished Indigenous writer, the award was named in honour of David Unaipon, one of the earliest published Indigenous writers.

This trail collects together Unaipon Award-winning books and authors.

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Dr Anita Heiss, compiler of this trail on identity, notes that:

In contemporary Australia as well as pre-contact Australia there is no single right way or one way to be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. Identities will vary according to place, time, language group and socio-historical context of the author.

This trail collects a sample of works with themes of identity in Indigenous culture.

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Beginning with an introduction to the Stolen Generations, this trail presents works depicting the emotional, psychological and physical traumas of their experiences, and the disruption of their oral and cultural knowledge.

Please be warned that some of these works and agent records may contain images, artwork, perspectives, and stories from people who are now deceased. It also contains words, terms, or descriptions that may be culturally sensitive and are considered inappropriate today, but that reflect the period in which the work was written.

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This trail is a sampling of information about authors and works related to Indigenous children's literature.

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For more information, check the following lists:

• all children's fiction by Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander authors.

• all children's fiction in BlackWords (including work with Indigenous themes and characters by non-Indigenous authors).

This trail presents some of the information in BlackWords about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sportspeople. Some of these stories celebrate great sporting achievements, but others also examine the cultural obstacles that Indigenous sportspeople have faced throughout history. Some items can be viewed online and others will be accessible at your local library or bookshop.

This trail should not be considered comprehensive, but as an introduction to works about Indigenous sportsmen and sportswomen.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women have served Australia in war from the Boer War (1899-1902) to the present, exhibiting the same loyalty and patriotism as their European counterparts, but received limited recognition, especially in the wars before the late 1960s.

This trail explores works relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders participating in the armed services.

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The Adnyamathanha are an Indigenous Australian people from the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, some 500km north of Adelaide. The Adnyamathanha people comprise many groups with distinct territories. Their country is rich in valuable ochre and stone, and was subject to colonial incursions from the 1850s onwards.

This trail introduces Adnyamathanha writers, storytellers, and works.

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The Bundjalung people (also spelt as Bunjalung, Banjalang and Bandjalang) are the original custodians of northern coastal areas of New South Wales, stretching from Grafton on the Clarence River in the south to the Logan River in the north and inland as far as the Great Dividing Range at Tenterfield and Warwick.

This trail introduces Bundjalung writers, storytellers, and works.

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The word Noongar means 'a person of the south-west of Western Australia', an area that extends from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast. Noongar language encompasses fourteen dialects, in keeping with the vastness of their space.

This trail introduces Noongar writers, storytellers, and works.

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An extension of the Noongar People and Stories trail, this trail focuses on performance texts, from Shakespearean sonnets in Noongar language to theatre companies and practitioners.

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The Wiradjuri nation is the largest cultural footprint in New South Wales, and the second largest group, geographically, in Australia.The Wiradjuri people, known as the 'people of the three rivers', are originally from the area in Central New South Wales that is bordered by the Lachlan, Macquarie, and Murrumbidgee rivers.

This trail introduces Wiradjuri writers, storytellers, and works.

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The homeland of the Noonuccal / Nunukul people is Minjerribah, (Island in the Sun), but now known as North Stradbroke Island. The island with South Stradbroke and Moreton Island act as a barrier to Moreton Bay (Quandamooka).

This trail introduces Noonuccal / Nunukul writers, storytellers, and works.

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The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large bay shared by Northern Territory and Queensland in the north central Australia. Arnhem Land and Cape York on its western and eastern shores. Aboriginal lands stretch along its shores and into the Gulf country region that surrounds the Gulf of Carpentaria in north western Queensland and eastern Northern Territory.

This trail presents stories, songs and songlines, writers, and storytellers concerning Aboriginal language groups in the region of the Gulf of Carpentaria, namely the Yanyuwa, Garawa, Waanyi, Mara, and Anindilyakwa from Groote Eylandt; Lardil, Yangkaal, and Kaiadilt from Mornington Island and Bentinck Island; Kurtijar, Agwamin and Yanga from the Normanton region; and Kalkadoon, including the those from the Cloncurry region.

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These information trails were built to accompany Dr Anita Heiss's series of BlackWords essays.

Click on one of the links below to go directly to the trail.

• Aboriginal Children's Literature about Country

• Writers on Country

• Serious Issues for Young Readers

• Aboriginal Literature for Children : More Than Just Pretty Pictures

• Writers on Identity

• Indigenous Stories Told Collectively

• Our Truths : Aboriginal Writers and the Stolen Generations