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Don’t Take Your Love to Town:
First Nations Classics (with an introduction by Nardi Simpson)

by

A seminal work of Indigenous memoir.

A$19.99
Available. Dispatched 2-3 business days
Overview

Ruby Langford Ginibi’s remarkable talent for storytelling grabbed the attention of both black and white Australians when she released Don’t Take Your Love to Town, which has gone on to become a bestseller and is now a seminal work of Indigenous memoir.

Don’t Take Your Love to Town is a story of courage in the face of poverty and tragedy. Ruby recounts losing her mother when she was six, growing up in a mission in northern New South Wales and leaving home when she was fifteen. She lived in tin huts and tents in the bush and picked up work on the land while raising nine children virtually single-handedly. Later she struggled to make ends meet in the Koori areas of Sydney.

Don’t Take Your Love to Town is a brilliant memoir that will open your eyes and heart to an extraordinary woman’s story.

Details

Ruby Langford Ginibi

Ruby Langford Ginibi (1934–2011), a member of the Bundjalung people, was born on Box Ridge mission at Coraki in northern New South Wales. She grew up in Bonalbo and later Casino. Her tribal name ‘Ginibi’ (black swan) was given to her in 1990 by her aunt, Eileen Morgan, a tribal elder of Box Ridge mission. Her autobiographies Don’t Take Your Love to Town (1988) and Real Deadly (1992) describe her life in the bush and later in Sydney raising a family of nine children. She has also published My Bundjalung People (1994), Haunted by the Past (1999) and All My Mob (2007). Recognised as a spokesperson for and educator of Koori culture, she travelled and lectured in Australia and abroad, and her essays were widely published.