I Am Nannertgarrook - Tasma Walton

Category: Historical Fiction, Literature, Novel
Language: English
Keywords: Aboriginal Actor Australian

Written by Tasma Walton
Read by Tasma Walton
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Unabridged

I Am Nannertgarrook
By: Tasma Walton
Narrated by: Tasma Walton
Release date
08-04-2025
Language
English
Format
Unabridged Audiobook
Length
10 hrs and 6 mins
Publisher
Simon & Schuster Australia
Categories
Literature & Fiction

Shortlisted for the 2026 Stella Prize
Winner of the 2025 ARA Historical Novel Prize
Shortlisted for the 2025 NiB Literary Award

Based on the true story of Tasma Walton’s ancestor, a powerful, heart-wrenching novel about maternal love that endures against pitiless odds. Kidnapped by sealers and enslaved far from her homeland, Nannertgarrook has a spirit that refuses to bow …

From her idyllic life in sea country in Nerrm (Port Phillip Bay, Victoria), Nannertgarrook is abducted and taken to a slave market, leaving behind a husband, daughter and son. Pregnant when seized, she soon gives birth to another son, whom she raises with the children of her fellow captives.

Nannertgarrook is separated not only from her Boonwurrung family, but from her birthright – the ceremonies she once was so joyously part of, the majestic whales who are her totem, the land and sky and sea country and its creatures. All these things she loves as deeply as she does her blood kin.

But now, as her reality becomes profoundly different, she must keep that family and her old life alive in her mind. Their rich, pulsating elements sing to us through her beautiful voice, even while Nannertgarrook herself is subjected to the worst of humanity. This sweeping novel asks us to consider who, in colonial history, were the real savages, and what it truly means to be civilised.