Despite the well-documented legacies of colonial naturalists, in recent years there has finally been increased and well-deserved recognition of the role of Australia’s Indigenous people in collecting, naming, cataloguing and sharing their understanding of this country’s native fauna. While history generally records ‘famous scientists’ from other countries as being responsible for identifying species, often naming them after themselves, it has become obvious that not only did this country’s first people have intricate knowledge of native fauna and its habitats and habits, but they provided an invaluable contribution to the development of western civilisation’s study of zoology. Aboriginal people knew Australia’s animals intimately for tens of thousands of years, knowledge that was passed down through the generations through song, dance, paintings and first-hand experience. 

Little Stones (UQP 2019), the debut fiction novel by Elizabeth Kuiper, is a coming of age story that has such a strong sense of authenticity that it feels more memoir than novel. The author, like the narrator of the story, Hannah, comes from Zimbabwe and immigrated to Australia with her mother, but I have no idea if that’s where the similarities between her life and Hannah’s story begin and end. The way this book is filled with close observations, quirky anecdotes and believable depictions of particular incidents persuades me that even if the main storyline is very different from the author’s own life, many of the details and memories must be real.