Australian Aboriginal literature has come a long way. Achievements by Australian Aboriginal authors, poets, film directors, musicians, and playwrights are being increasingly recognized around the world. However, as recently as the early 1970s Australian Aboriginal artists were a marginalized voice in Australian literary studies and mainstream Australian culture. With the exception of praised works such as those by writers David Unaipon and Sally Morgan, poets Oodgeroo Noonuccal (formerly Kath Walker) and Lionel Fogarty, musicians Jimmy Little and the members of Yothu Yindi, and playwrights Kevin Gilbert and Jack Davis, there were few “celebrated” Australian Aboriginal artists in the mid- to late twentieth century. Though Aboriginal literature existed well before the first book by an Australian Aboriginal was published—Unaipon's collection of myths, Native Legends (1929)—there was no market for material by Aboriginals in mainstream Australian society. Although the success attained in the face of colonial pressure by these few exceptional Aboriginal artists motivated other Aboriginals to share their work, it was arguably not until the lead-up to the 1988 Australian bicentennial celebrations that the wider Australian public showed genuine interest in Australian Aboriginals, their culture, and their literature. For the first time a large portion of Australia's non-Aboriginal community wanted to explore literature written or performed by Australian Aboriginals. This resulted in an explosion of Aboriginal literature in various genres including life writing, fiction, poetry, film, drama, and music. This book chronicles many of the literary achievements by Australian Aboriginals from before the bicentary through today.