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Maren Wiederhold

NOT QUITE WHITE IN THE HEAD

Melissa Lucashenko

Personal Essays

Miles Franklin-award winner Melissa Lucashenko's searing essays and journalism published together for the first time.
'For thousands of years, global narratives have had, as their explicit task, the expansion of the human heart.'

Melissa Lucashenko is one of our most admired and awarded novelists. She is renowned for writing about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead

This timely collection of essays and journalism published together for the first time spans two turbulent decades. With her trademark wit and wisdom, Lucashenko reflects on being caught in a siege, on the marginalised lives of prisoners and the urban poor, on Blak identity, Australian literature and on meeting her writing idol. Her non-fiction, like her novels, is deeply engaged with politics, activism, culture and social (in)justice.

Not Quite White in the Head offers unprecedented access to one of the nation's greatest writers as she invites us into the conversations that truly matter.

Melissa Lucashenko is a Goorie (Aboriginal) author of Bundjalung and European heritage. Her first novel was published in 1997 and since then her work has received acclaim in many literary awards. Her sixth novel, Too Much Lip, won the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction, the Stella Prize, two Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, two Queensland Literary Awards and two NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Melissa is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside. She writes about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead. Edenglassie has won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, the Indie Book Award for Fiction, the BookPeople Adult Fiction Book of the Year and the Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance.
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Published 2025-11-04 by UQP

Comments

I can say with hand on heart that Melissa Lucashenko is one of my favourite living Australian writers .

Not Quite White in the Head shines a light on the beauty and pain that exist simultaneously in Australia as a colonised nation ... Heavy themes, including deaths in custody, domestic violence and incarceration, are interwoven with sharp wit, ironic humour and Lucashenko's unrelenting "joy" in being Aboriginal. The result is an unflinching work that entertains and engages while also educating.

In the hands of a skilled writer like Lucashenko, humour provides a pressure-release for telling stories of systemic inequities and everyday racism.

Lucashenko is a national treasure.