First Nations writer Nayuka Gorrie on the five books that impacted them the most

“The archive is full of lessons for our present and future.”

Every avid reader has a book (or two, or three) that holds a special place on their shelf. Maybe it’s the first book that really hooked them on reading or a novel they read while at one of life’s pivotal crossroads. For Gunnai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wriadjuri and Yorta Yorta writer Nayuka Gorrie, their literary archive is “full of lessons for our present and future.”

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Nayuka Gorrie’s work as a freelance and comedy television writer centres on Black, feminist and queer politics. They’ve written and performed in the third and fourth seasons of Black Comedy, and are currently writing a book about colonialism and living in Australia. They’ll be sharing their stories at Rainbow Words, an upcoming event in the Blak & Bright Festival calendar, taking place from March 14 to 17.

 

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“During the global outbreak of COVID-19, the world turned to literature when the plague began doing the rounds again,” Nayuka says. “I took to Discipline and Punish by Michael Foucault where he outlined the use of panopticon in the 17th century to manage the plague. History repeats. The world is so dark right now and like many, I have been returning to texts to learn from, be radicalised by and find solace in.” Below, they share the five books that have impacted them the most.

Orientalism by Edward Said

I first read this book by the late Palestinian-American writer and academic at university in 2011. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about colonial myths [and] how they are either propagated, enabled and shared by politicians and media.

Colonial myths and how they manifest today, whether terra nullius, this idea of either violent Blacks who need taming by either the state or the settler-cum-citizen cop, docile natives in need of saving (from ourselves!); they can all be traced back to invasion and settlement.

While he was speaking to the colonial production and reproduction of tropes of those in the Middle East, understanding how this production works in the colonial project has been useful in understanding colonialism everywhere. His theorising around these productions reminds us all – writers, creatives, curators – that we are all implicated in myth-making if we allow ourselves to be.

Get it here.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler 

A lot of people are often shocked at how prophetic this series is. [It’s] set in a dystopian future where climate change and social inequity have left society in ruins. It’s in these ruins the protagonist, Lauren Olamina, pens the verses of her religious text of Earthseed. Butler says at the time she wrote it, she just looked around at what was happening and imagined them getting worse for 30 years. She really wasn’t far off. I am not religious but if I were to be, I would be an Earthseed convert.

“All that you touch
You change
All that you change
Changes you
The only lasting truth
Is change.
God is change.”

I love this so much, I got my friend to stick and poke the tattoo ‘God is Change’ onto the back of my neck. This philosophy is not one of complacency in my mind. Neither is it necessarily hopeful (another tattoo I would consider is ‘Fuck Hope’ ala Professor Chelsea Watego!). Earthseed encourages people to shape God (thus shape change). Once again, we are all implicated!

Get it here.

The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein

This book recently won the People’s Choice Award at the Victorian Premiers Literary Awards. Antony Lowenstein is a Jewish journalist who grew up in Melbourne. This book meticulously investigates the different technologies and weapons adapted by Israel [and] first tested on Palestinians in places like Gaza.

This meticulous research is a balm in a world where the truth is collapsed, both under lies wilfully spread and circulated without question and under its own scale and quantity… [I am] a Blackfulla living here learning about corporations selling their surveillance technology that is eventually used to surveil Blackfullas.

This book is a stark reminder of the evil convergence of racial capitalism, colonialism and technology and how injustice somewhere will find its way to your doorstep, thus serving as a reminder that global solidarity is not only right because fighting injustice wherever it may be is a duty, but it is necessary because we are all implicated.

Get it here.

Blakwork by Alison Whittaker

There was a time [when] I didn’t particularly enjoy poetry. I think of this time as pre-Allison Whittaker. Blakwork made me realise how ignorant I’d been of poetry and reading Blakwork cracked open the world of poetry, particularly Black poetry, to me. It made me realise that poetry and its conventions give space to articulate things that can not be held in other forms.

A line of her poem often gets stuck in my head, ‘Many Girls White Linen’. Alison is freakishly incredible at everything she does from poetry to legal research. I’ve sat with Allison at literary events, coronial courtrooms [and] birthday parties. Our work and words sit alongside each other too, from our words of solidarity through Blackfullas for Palestine to an interview we did together in the publication The Lifted Brow. I consider myself lucky every time our paths cross.

Get it here.

From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii  by Haunani-Kay Trask

Haunani-Kay Trask was a Hawaiian poet, scholar and activist. She died two years ago. This book was written decades ago and thousands of kilometres away, but Trask’s articulation of sovereignty and the colony project are prescient for all under the yoke of settler colonialism. Other articles of hers connected our struggles, particularly the feminist sovereign struggles of Kurds, Palestinians, Blackfullas and Native Hawaiians.

There is something karmic to be said about the man beginning our settler colonial project here [and] meeting his end over there. There were a lot of other favourite books that have been on my mind that I haven’t had the space here to write about. Books like Citizen, Slaughterhouse-Five, Sleepless, Another Day in the Colony, A Small Place [and] Black and Blue also hold a very special place in my heart archive. I hope you can all learn, be radicalised and moved to action by books.

Get it here.

You can catch Nayuka Gorrie at the 2024 Blak & Bright Festival. Get your tickets here.