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Published 29 August 2023
ISBN 9781922790514
Format Paperback
Extent 288pp
AU Price $24.99
NZ Price $30.00

Sand Talk

How Indigenous thinking can save the world



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What happens when global systems are viewed from an Indigenous perspective? How does it affect the way we see history, money, power and learning? Could it change the world?

‘A book of cultural and philosophic intrigue. Read it.’ Bruce Pascoe, author of Dark Emu

This remarkable book is about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, sex and science and spirits to Schrödinger’s cat.

Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently?

Sand Talk provides a template for living. It’s about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everybody and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things.

Most of all it’s about Indigenous thinking, and how it can save the world.

‘One of the best books I ever read…It leaves you gasping. If you care about yourself, the world around you, and where you come from, you’d better read it.’ Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Dogs and Growing Old

‘An extraordinary invitation into the world of the Dreaming… Unheralded.’ Melissa Lucashenko

‘Radical ideas, bursting with reason.’ Tara June Winch

‘Playful, profound, and fiercely original.’ Deep Time Dreaming
Nicolas Rothwell

Published 29 August 2023
ISBN 9781922790514
Format Paperback
Extent 288pp
AU Price $24.99
NZ Price $30.00

Awards & recognition

Ansari Institute Book Prize

Winner  •  2022  •  Ansari Institute Book Prize

Australian Book Industry Awards

Winner  •  2020  •  Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year

Australian Book Industry Awards

Shortlisted  •  2020  •  Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year

Indie Book Awards

Shortlisted  •  2020  •  Non-fiction

Praise for Sand Talk

‘This book shows how vital and alive and essential Indigenous ways of being and thinking are. Yunkaporta is so smart, funny, and accessible. Everyone needs to read this’

Tommy Orange

‘A familiar Indigenous sense of humour and generosity of sharing knowledge makes this book enjoyable to read…Like Dark Emu, Yunkaporta’s book will have people talking.’

Books+Publishing

‘Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk is an extraordinary reading experience. It’s both philosophical and practical, and underpinned by a compassionate yet realistic humanity.’

Readings

‘Clever, funny, thought provoking, sensible and generous all at the same time. A must read!’

Sydney Morning Herald

‘Perhaps the most unusual science book of the year…It’s a dramatically new (to some) and absorbing way of engaging with the world, and stops just short of exasperation with self-important “western science”.’

Guardian

‘Thought-provoking.’

New York Times

About the author

Tyson Yunkaporta

Tyson Yunkaporta is an Aboriginal scholar, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne, and author of Sand Talk and Right Story, Wrong Story. His work focuses on applying Indigenous methods of inquiry to resolve complex issues and explore global crises.

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Rights for Sand Talk

Rights held: World

Rights sold: ANZ audio—Audible; Czech—Nakladatelstvi Lukas; France—Editions La Maisnie; Germany—Matthes & Seitz; Italy—Nottetempo; North America—HarperOne; Spain—Herder Editorial; Russia—Ad Marginem Press; Turkey—Pegasus.