Join us for a very special event celebrating A Piece of Red Cloth, a novel set in Arnhem Land and co-authored by Leonie Norrington, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djawa Burarrwanga, and Djawundil Maymuru—a collaboration that brings Yolŋu oral history to the page with grace and heart. Leonie will be in conversation with Red Kangaroo Book's Jane Lloyd, sharing the story behind this wonderful book and reflecting on its cultural significance and creative process.

About the book:

A powerful, unique novel based on the oral history of the Yolngu people from north-east Arnhem Land that tells the story of a grandmother who stops at nothing to protect her granddaughter.

It's early in the wet season. A flock of crested terns sweeps into the bay and dives towards Batjani. The birds are saying the foreigners are coming, as they do every year, but why are they so full of menace?

Batjani's beloved granddaughter Garritji is on the cusp of womanhood, about to go through the rituals preparing her for marriage. Batjani uses all means at her disposal to protect her granddaughter from the visiting Macassan trepang fishers, but she is betrayed. Can Garritji be saved?

This powerful and unique novel is based on oral history and told through Yolngu eyes, with ancestors as the Yolngu remember them: proud, strong, resilient people in control of their world and interacting with foreigners on their own terms.

'Told through the voices of the people who know it best, all those deeply important events from times long before Cook imagined a Southern Land.' - Debra Dank

'This riveting novel based on Yolngu oral history takes the reader inside a coastal Arnhem Land community in the 1600s, at a point of crisis... As we watch the situation unfold with dread, we also experience the everyday joy of Yolngu life, the strength of culture and the wonder of their cosmology.' - The Guardian

'A glimpse into pre-colonial Australia and a world still powerfully alive in the Yolngu imagination.' - Kim Mahood