Indigenous Australian literature panel featured at the 2019 National Book Festival in Washington, DC

[CBHagman]

The National Book Festival takes place every year in Washington, D.C., and showcases writers of all kinds — historians, novelists, poets — and this year featured a panel of Australian writers.

Video from C-SPAN's Book TV is not yet available, but I will keep a lookout for it. I'm also checking the Library of Congress account on YouTube, which has been adding author events over the past 24 hours.


https://thetandd.com/news/local/claflin-s-wheeler-to-moderate-national-book-festival-panel/article_686d01ad-0795-5342-b624-3650689e8bc6.html

The Indigenous Australian literature panel, which Wheeler organized with the support of the Australian Embassy, will include Kim Scott, an award-winning novelist and subject of Wheeler’s second book; Brenton McKenna, Australia’s first Indigenous graphic novelist, and Jeanine Leane, an award-winning poet and novelist who visited Claflin University in 2017 and 2016.

[Matilda]

1. Yet even today, the Indigenous people of Australia face discrimination

and continuing theft of their land.

Two Labor Prime Ministers, Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating, made determined efforts to advance recognition from white Australians of Indigenous rights and contribution of Indigenous peoples to our culture. But the conservatives seem hellbent on stealing more land and doing their best to degrade their culture and trash their history. This was epitomised by the refusal of a number of conservative MPs to attend Kevin Rudd's "Sorry" speech in Parliament shortly after his election as Prime Minster; among those who were not present were John Howard and current Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, probably the most detested politician in the country, and also the loathsome Tony Abbott.