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Writing Never Arrives Naked: Early Aboriginal Writing in Australia

(Paperback)


Publishing Details

Full Title:

Writing Never Arrives Naked: Early Aboriginal Writing in Australia

Contributors:

By (Author) Penny van Toorn

ISBN:

9780855755447

Publisher:

Aboriginal Studies Press

Imprint:

Aboriginal Studies Press

Publication Date:

1st July 2006

Country:

Australia

Classifications

Readership:

General

Fiction/Non-fiction:

Non Fiction

Dewey:

820.989915

Prizes:

Short-listed for Victorian Premier's Literary Award - Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction 2007

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Paperback

Number of Pages:

270

Dimensions:

Width 154mm, Height 230mm

Weight:

500g

Description

In "Writing Never Arrives Naked", Penny van Toorn engages our minds and hearts. In this academically innovative book she reveals the resourceful and often poignant ways that Indigenous Australians involved themselves in the colonisers' paper culture. The first Aboriginal readers were children stolen from the clans around Sydney Harbour. The first Aboriginal author was Bennelong -- a stolen adult. From the early years of colonisation, Aboriginal people used written texts to negotiate a changing world, to challenge their oppressors, protect country and kin, and occasionally for economic gain. Van Toorn argues that Aboriginal people were curious about books and papers, and in time began to integrate letters of the alphabet into their graphic traditions. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Aboriginal people played key roles in translating the Bible, and made their political views known in community and regional newspapers. They also sent numerous letters and petitions to political figures, including Queen Victoria. Penny van Toorn challenges the established notion that the colonists' paper culture superseded Indigenous oral cultures. She argues that Indigenous communities developed their own cultures of reading and writing, which involved a complex interplay between their own social protocols and the practices of literacy introduced by the British. Many distinctive features of Aboriginal writing today were shaped by the cultural, socio-political and institutional conditions in which Aboriginal people were living in colonial times.

Author Bio

Penny van Toorn is a senior lecturer in Australian Literature and Australian Studies at the University of Sydney. She has published widely on the Indigenous Literatures of Australia and Canada, and worked collaboratively with Australian Indigenous authors and academics.

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