AustLit

'Sometimes you need to repeat something a hundred times before a bell rings in the colony.'

From the bestselling author Bruce Pascoe comes a deeply personal story about the consequences and responsibility of disrupting Australia's history.

'When Dark Emu was adopted by Australia like a new anthem, Bruce found himself at the centre of a national debate that often focussed on the wrong part of the story. But through all the noise came Black Duck Foods, a blueprint for traditional food growing and land management processes based on very old practices.

'Bruce Pascoe and Lyn Harwood invite us to imagine a different future for Australia, one where we can honour our relationship with nature and improve agriculture and forestry. Where we can develop a uniquely Australian cuisine that will reduce carbon emissions, preserve scarce water resources and rebuild our soil. Bruce and Lyn show us that you don't just work Country, you look, listen and care. It's not Black Duck magic, it's the result of simply treating Australia like herself.

'From the aftermath of devastating bushfires and the impact of an elder's death to rebuilding a marriage and counting the personal cost of starting a movement, Black Duck is a remarkable glimpse into a year of finding strength in Country at Yumburra.' (Publication summary)

'DARK EMU is a phenomenon. The book has sold more than a quarter of a million copies, received multiple awards and is one of the best-selling books of its kind. As questions arose over the merits of the contents of the book, old questions re-surfaced about the authenticity of the author Bruce Pascoe. In this feature documentary, we will delve into this search for identity, and in so doing spark yet more conversations about where we might be heading as a nation. The documentary will also be a platform for First Nations people to tell their own stories about their deep past. How new discoveries are shedding light on who their ancestors were and how they survived and prospered for at least 65,000 years on the most arid continent on earth.'

Source: Screen Australia.

'Bruce Pascoe always knew his book Dark Emu would be controversial.' 

'This article presents and discusses an experiment with Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu as an inaugural case study of how we might apply the International Integrated Reporting (<IR>) Framework to an Australian book title. It represents a novel approach to the question of how to be attentive to the problem of value in Australian culture, building on recent research by Meyrick, Phiddian and Barnett and complementing contemporary work on Australian book industry economics by Zwar, Throsby and others at Macquarie University. The results of this experiment indicate that integrated reporting, and in particular the <IR> framework—an established, rigorous and internationally recognised form of reporting—can be effectively applied to a single local book title, drawing exclusively on publicly available data in a manner that effectively and efficiently articulates types of value that exceed the economic. While the <IR> framework has its limitations, my overarching conclusion is that this form of value reporting has strong potential to contribute to timely and effective local book industry advocacy into the future.' (Publication abstract)