'Be careful what you wish for,' wrote Aesop, 'lest it come true.' Debra Dank had long been desperate to visit the National Archives, to paint a fuller picture of her family, to add flesh to the name-bones and the few precious stories she possessed. What she discovered would shatter everything she thought she knew about her family and her past.She had been aware of her father's five siblings, some of whom had died before she could come to know them, but there were always whispers an...

You won't find 'terraglossia' on Google, or in a dictionary. It's a word coined by acclaimed academic and award-winning author Dr Debra Dank in response to the first Europeans' description of Australia as 'terra nullius' - no one's land.These new arrivals, with their language born far away, silenced and made invisible the more-than-ancient civilisations that have lived in and with this place for many thousands of years. The First Peoples became 'other', spoken for and about in anot...

We Come with This Place is a remarkable book, as rich, varied and surprising as the vast landscape in which it is set. Debra Dank has created an extraordinary mosaic of vivid episodes that move about in time and place to tell an unforgettable story of country and people.There is great pain in these pages, and anger at injustice, but also great love, in marriage and in family, and for the land. Dank faces head on the ingrained racism, born of brutal practice and harsh legislation, t...

Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-FictionIndigenous Writers' PrizeUTS Glenda Adams Award for New WritingLonglisted for the 2023 Stella PrizePrime Minister's Summer Reading List 2022, Grattan InstituteWe Come with This Place is a remarkable book, as rich, varied and surprising as the vast landscape in which it is set. Debra Dank has created an extraordinary mosaic of...

'Be careful what you wish for,' wrote Aesop, 'lest it come true.' Debra Dank had long been desperate to visit the National Archives, to paint a fuller picture of her family, to add flesh to the name-bones and the few precious stories she possessed. What she discovered would shatter everything she thought she knew about her family and her past.She had been aware of her father's five siblings, some of whom had died before she could come to know them, but there were always whispers an...

We Come with This Place is a remarkable book, as rich, varied and surprising as the vast landscape in which it is set. Debra Dank has created an extraordinary mosaic of vivid episodes that move about in time and place to tell an unforgettable story of country and people.There is great pain in these pages, and anger at injustice, but also great love, in marriage and in family, and for the land. Dank faces head on the ingrained racism, born of brutal practice and harsh legislation, t...