The Yuwaalaraay woman and Stiff Gins musician turned novelist has reimagined the history of Sydney. But how to tell that story without claiming ownership of it?

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In 2021 Nardi Simpson attended the Prime Minister’s Literary awards ceremony – not with her Miles Franklin-nominated debut novel, Song of the Crocodile, but as one of three First Nations women who contributed chapters to a book by a non-Indigenous academic, Amanda Harris, that was shortlisted for the history prize. Simpson and her co-contributors were credited in the book but, as its author, Harris was the only name on the cover and the only person eligible for the award.

Looking at the other finalists in the history category, Simpson, a Yuwaalaraay woman, saw a pattern. “Four out of the five works were about First Nations communities and experience, but there was just one name squeezed up at the top [of each book’s cover] and that one name was non-Indigenous,” she says.