Elfie Shiosaki: Homecoming

Elfie-Shiosaki-HomecomingHomecoming pieces together fragments of stories about four generations of Noongar women and explores how they navigated the changing landscapes of colonisation, protectionism, and assimilation to hold their families together.

This seminal collection of poetry, prose and historical colonial archives, tells First Nations truths of unending love for children – those that were present, those taken, those hidden and those that ultimately stood in the light.

Homecoming speaks to the intergenerational dialogue about Country, kin and culture. This elegant and extraordinary form of restorative story work amplifies Aboriginal women’s voices, and enables four generations of women to speak for themselves.

This sublime debut highlights the tenacity of family as well as First Nation’s agency to resist, survive and renew. Shiosaki has restored humanity and power to her family in this beautifully articulated collection and has given voice to those silenced by our brutal past.

Written using archival records, family letters and interviews with her great-grandmother Olive Harris and her grandmother Helen Shiosaki, Homecoming is the culmination of five years of research that shares the story of Elfie’s ancestors.

“It was overwhelming to see and read about oppression of Noongar women in my reserach,” said Shiosaki. “It made awakening their voices from the archive all the more powerful.”

Elfie Shiosaki is a Noongar and Yawuru writer. She is a Lecturer in Indigenous Rights at the School of Indigenous Studies at the University of Western Australia.

Shiosaki was the Editor of Indigenous Writing at Westerly from 2017 to 2021, and was the co-editor of maar bidi: next generation black writing (Magabala Books 2020). Homecoming is her first solo collection.


Homecoming is published by Magabala Books and is available from all leading book shops including Booktopia.

Image: Homecoming – courtesy of Magabala Books