My People (La mia gente) by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

The centenary of birth celebrations continues for the great Aboriginal Australian author and poet Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal tribe (1920-1993). The Italian Cultural Institute in Sydney, in collaboration with the Italian publisher Mimesis has proudly presented a book, translated into Italian for the first time, by Margherita Zanoletti titled ‘My People. La mia gente’, the first critical edition of Oodgeroo’s largest and most widespread poetic anthology.

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920–1993) was born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska Oodgeroo in 1920, a descendant of the Noonuccal people of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island).

She was an author and political activist, most commonly lauded as the first Aboriginal poet to publish a collection of verse. Her writing, informed by the oral traditions of her ancestors and guided by her desire to capture that unique Aboriginal inflection using the English language, strove to share the nuances of the author’s beloved culture with a wide audience.

During her lifetime she was, and continues to be, recognised as one of Australia’s leading literary figures, who used her pen to give voice to the Indigenous struggle for rights and justice. In 1962, she was instrumental in advocating for citizenship rights for Indigenous people as Secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), work that gave rise to the 1967 referendum.

In recognition of a lifetime commitment to Indigenous peoples and her outstanding contributions to Australian literature Oodgeroo Noonuccal was awarded three honorary doctorates by Universities within Australia.

In ‘My People’ (1970), now considered a “classic” of postcolonial literature, Oodgeroo’s poetry recovers and rewrites the oral and cultural traditions of First Nations populations, while reclaiming the rights denied by Government policies. Oodgeroo is the first Aboriginal poet in history. Her literary career began in the mid-Sixties with the debut collection We Are Going, published with the Anglo-Saxon name Kath Walker and then merged into My People, here translated into Italian for the first time. 

This Mimesis volume includes, in addition to the original text and translation, an in-depth introduction, a glossary of terms relating to the Indigenous cultures of Australia and a text by the Waanyi writer Alexis Wright. The cover features a work dedicated to Oodgeroo, created in 2020 by the Wathaurong artist Carol McGregor.

The book presentation was held at the Italian Cultural Institute, with the in-person participation of Marika Duczynski (Curator, Indigenous Heritage at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney) and Monica Galassi (Researcher at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education & Research/PhD student at the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, School of International Studies, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the online interventions of Susan Petrilli (Professor of Philosophy and Theory of Languages, University “Aldo Moro” of Bari and Visiting Research Fellow, University of Adelaide) and Margherita Zanoletti. 

An open discussion with the public was moderated by Alice Loda (Lecturer in International Studies and Languages at the University of Technology Sydney) and Valentina Gosetti (Associate Professor at the University of New England).

The translating author, Margherita Zanoletti, is a graduate from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and PhD in Translation Studies, The University of Sydney, with a special focus on word and image and intercultural studies. 

She first translated the writings of the Australian painter Brett Whiteley, poems by various First Nations authors and various texts by Oodgeroo into Italian, collaborating with Italian and international publishers.