AustLit
Bruce Pascoe, a Bunurong man, is a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative of southern Victoria, and an award-winning Australian writer, editor, and anthologist. His works have been published nationally and internationally, and have won several national literary competitions. He has combined writing fiction and non-fiction with a career as a successful publisher and has been the director of the Australian Studies Project for the Commonwealth Schools Commission. He has also worked as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, farm fence contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker, and editor. He appeared in the SBS TV program, First Australians.
His Jim Fox series of novels were partially set in the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya (West Papua). As a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative, Pascoe edited school readers on the history and language of the Wathaurong people, demonstrating his interest in Indigenous language retrieval and teaching. He has spoken at conferences on Aboriginal culture and edited several anthologies and translations of Australian stories.
Pascoe edited and published Australian Short Stories (1982-1998), a quarterly journal of short fiction. Publishing experimental and traditional short stories by established writers and enabling new writers to demonstrate their potential, the journal continued under the editorship of Howard Firkin at Moolton Press until 2000. Pascoe has run Pascoe Publishing and Seaglass Books with his wife Lyn Harwood.
His book exploring the history of Aboriginal agriculture Dark Emu : Black Seeds : Agriculture or Accident? has attracted considerable attention for its discussion of land management practices in Australia prior to colonisation.
In 2020, he was appointed Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne.
His non-fiction works include:
- With Krishna-Pillay, Dictionary of Wathawoorroong, (1st ed, Geelong, Vic: Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-op, 2007.
- With Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative & Coast Action, Wathaurong: The People Who Said No. Nth. Geelong, Vic: Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-Operative, 2003.
Boonwurrrung Elder, Jack Charles was born at the Cummeragunja Mission on the Murray River and was a child of the Stolen Generations. He was taken from his mother and spent many of his formative years in a Melbourne boys' homes. Charles originally believed he was a Yorta Yorta man, but later discovered he belonged to the Boonwurrung people. His obituary notes that he retained ties to the Yorta Yorta clan, as well as the Dja Dja Wurrong and Woiwurrung people, and other people across south-eastern Australia. His father's and family's ties to Aboriginal nations across Victoria and Tasmania were explored in a 2021 episode of Who Do You Think You Are?
In 1971 he co-founded the first Aboriginal theatre company, Nindethana, with Bob Maza.
Charles acted in feature films, TV series and hundreds of plays including, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Bedevil, Ben Hall and the 1972 play Bastardy, about his own life. Bastardy is also the title of the 2008 film about Charles' life by filmmaker Amiel Courtin-Wilson. He continued acting well into his 70s, including a role in Cleverman.
Jack Charles died in the Royal Melbourne Hospital in September 2022, after suffering a stroke.
Derrimut was an Aboriginal leader of the Boonwurrung people from the Melbourne area. His warning of an impending attack by Aboriginal people from 'up-country' prevented a massacre of John Pascoe Fawkner's party in late 1835. A headstone at Melbourne General Cemetery, Parkville, Victoria, records this act.
Source: Monument Australia website, www.monumentaustralia.org.au (sighted 23/01/2012)
