<
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/18/clare-wright-wins-book-of-the-year-nsw-literary-awards>
"A “highly original” nonfiction by Melbourne historian Clare Wright, charting
the creation of the Yirrkala Bark Petitions – a seminal moment in Australia’s
history of land rights – has won book of the year at the NSW literary awards.
The Petitions were landmark documents presented by Yolŋu elders to the
Australian parliament in 1963 on painted bark frames, which sought government
intervention after a portion of Arnhem Land Reserve was licensed to a French
mining company. Though it didn’t halt mining on the land, the petitions led to
the first land rights legislation in Australia, the
Aboriginal Land Rights
(Northern Territory) Act 1976.
Written more like a novel than a historical nonfiction,
Näku Dhäruk: The Bark
Petitions treats its subjects as characters, bringing the reader along with
their political aspirations and acts of resilience, without the sense of
inevitability that usually accompanies a work of history.
At a ceremony at the NSW state library on Monday night,
Näku Dhäruk won the
$10,000 top prize along with the $40,000 Douglas Stewart prize for nonfiction.
Judges called the book “a work of national significance”, saying the personal
accounts included in the narrative felt “vividly alive” with “an extraordinary
depth of research and sophisticated scholarship”.
“It is a book that should be read by all Australians,” judges said.
Näku Dhäruk: The Bark Petitions is the third in Wright’s “democracy trilogy”
about three defining moments in Australia’s political history, including the
2014 Stella prize-winning
Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, which shares the
stories of women who united during the 1850s Eureka Stockade, and
You
Daughters of Freedom, about white Australian women winning the right to vote."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
