Shortlisted for the 2025 ABIA Social Impact Book of the Year, Stan Grant’s latest book Murriyang is talking to his country in a new way. In his most poetic and inspiring work yet, he offers a means of moving beyond the binaries and embracing a path to peace and forgiveness, rooted in the Wiradjuri spiritual practice of Yindyamarra – deep silence and respect.
Partly a response to the Voice referendum, Murriyang eschews politics for love, drawing upon history, literature, theology, music and art, as we as spiritual thinkers from around the world. Murriyang is a Wiradjuri prayer in one long uninterrupted breath, challenging Western notions of linear time in favour of a time beyond time – the Dreaming.
A book for our current moment, and something for the ages, hear Stan discuss Murriyang, in conversation with journalist and ABC Sydney host Rae Johnston.
Stan Grant is a Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi man. He is a public intellectual who has worked as a journalist, presenter, filmmaker and author. As a writer he has published seven books including the bestselling Talking to My Country, which won the Walkley Book Award. In 2016, he was appointed to the Referendum Council on Indigenous recognition. In 2018, he was appointed Professor of Global Affairs at Griffith University. In 2020, Stan became the International Affairs Analyst at the ABC and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University. From 2022–23, he hosted the ABC’s current affairs panel program Q+A. His latest book is Murriyang.
Rae Johnston is a Wiradyuri and Greek woman who was born and raised on Darug and Gundungurra Country in the Blue Mountains. A multi-award-winning STEM journalist, Rae is the radio host of ABC Radio National’s Download This Show, ABC Radio Sydney’s Sunday Mornings (broadcasting state-wide) and iHeartRadio’s Weird Tech podcast. She also travels the country as a TV host on NITV’s Going Places with Ernie Dingo, ABC’s Back Roads and SBS’ The Secret DNA Of Us.
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This event is part of the Main Program and included as part of Platinum, Gold, Silver and Saturday Bronze Passes.
Subject to availability, a limited number of single tickets may become available 9 September.
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This venue is wheelchair accessible. Please visit our Accessibility page or email hello@bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au if you have any other accessibility requirements.