Story of Aboriginal leader wins Christian book award
On Tuesday, November 28, 1786 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge presented the First Fleet chaplain, Rev Richard Johnson, with about 4000 books and tracts, effectively establishing the first library on Australian shores. It's unclear what the original Australians would have made of this collection of white pages and humans, with their very different approach to collating knowledge and ideas. Now the story has come full circle (some painful detours along the way) with the biography of an Aboriginal leader winning the 2012 Australian Christian Book of the Year, presented this month by SPCKA at the Australian Christian Literature Awards in Melbourne. Murray Seiffert's Gumbuli of Ngukurr: Aboriginal elder in Arnhem Land ( Acorn Press ) was announced the winner ahead of 40 titles and was joined by runner-up A Short History of Christianity ( Viking-Penguin ) by Geoffrey Blainey and third placed Love, Tears and Autism: An Australian mother's journey from heart