Dark Emu - Bruce Pascoe

Dark Emu
by Bruce Pascoe

Published by Magabala Books - June 2018 - Paperback - 278 pp - 14cm x 21cm

Pascoe puts forward a compelling argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer label for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing -behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag.

'If we look at the evidence presented to us by the explorers and explain to our children that Aboriginal people did build houses, did build dams, did sow, irrigate and till the land, did alter the course of rivers, did sew their clothes, and did construct a system of pan-continental government that gathered peace and prosperity, then it is likely we will admire and love our land all the more.' — Bruce Pascoe

'Dark Emu injects a profound authenticity into the conversation about how we Australians understand our continent... [It is] essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what Australia once was, or what it might yet be if we heed the lessons of long and sophisticated human occupation.' — Judges for 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

Bruce Pascoe is a Bunurong man born in Melbourne, and writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature. He is a professor at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education & Research at the University of Technology Sydney.
His bestselling book Dark Emu was Book of the Year at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2016, as well as being shortlisted for numerous other awards. He is also the author of Young Dark Emu: A Truer History, published in June 2019. He recently collaborated with Bill Gammage and they together wrote Country: Future Fire, Future Farming.