Aboriginal literature may be a new field in academic study, yet the term designates a set of creative and communicative practices that reach into deep time, “time immemorial” as Aboriginal people sometime call it, while also having a vital and diverse presence in contemporary culture. At the start of the twenty-first century, Indigenous Australian writers are prominent practitioners in the major literary genres of fiction and nonfiction, poetry, drama, and writing for young people. they regularly receive awards and accolades for their work. Alexis Wright won the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award for her novel Carpentaria in 2007, and Kim Scott won jointly for his novel Benang: From the Heart in 2000 and for his novel That Deadman Dance in 2010. Australian indigenous writers are also leading innovators in collaborative expression across the generations, across art forms, in life writing, storytelling, film, performance, and video art, taking power in their responsibility for custodianship and transmission of culture. there are many reasons, then, why Aboriginal literature is an exciting area of creative achievement, worthy of attention, celebration, and scholarly inquiry. This new companion makes an important contribution to the work in the field, extending and deepening our understanding.

The term Aboriginal literature has a relatively recent currency. Writer-scholars Anita Heiss and Peter Minter used it for the title of their 2008 anthology where, in an introductory essay under that heading, they wrote, “This anthology presents, for the first time in a single volume, the range and depth of Aboriginal writing in English from the late eighteenth-century to the present day” (1).