34 - A (Sovereign) Body of Work

Summary

From the late 1990s onwards, contemporary Australian Indigenous literary culture has expanded to include a strong body of literary fiction novels. This includes a more recent significant deepening of Australian Indigenous literary culture, as Indigenous writers use the literary novel form to express long-existing Indigenous stories, storytelling modes, knowledges, paradigms, and perspectives. Australian Indigenous literary culture is now at a nexus point, having built a strong body of fiction novels that are both important to Indigenous readers, critics and scholars, and recognised through Australian literary award lists and increasing global reach. How do we engage with this body of work in expansive ways? This chapter argues for the use of Indigenous-centred approaches – framed around Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing – to engage with Australian Indigenous literary fiction novels and thereby shift power within the majority non-indigenous literary sector.