Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World

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.

Short-listed for Non-fiction, Indie Book Awards 2020 (Australia)
Long-listed for Booktopia Favourite Australian Book 2020 (Australia)
Long-listed for Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards 2020 (Australia)
Long-listed for Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards 2020 (Australia)

“'It was certainty that drove a bulldozer through the oldest and deepest philosophic statement on earth at Burrup Peninsula. Sand Talk offers no certainties and Tyson Yunkaporta is not a bulldozer driver. This is a book of cultural and philosophic intrigue. Read it.'”

‘An extraordinary invitation into the world of the Dreaming... Unheralded.’ Melissa Lucashenko
'It was certainty that drove a bulldozer through the oldest and deepest philosophic statement on earth at Burrup Peninsula. Sand Talk offers no certainties and Tyson Yunkaporta is not a bulldozer driver. This is a book of cultural and philosophic intrigue. Read it.’ Bruce Pascoe
'Radical ideas, bursting with reason.’ Tara June Winch
'After two hundred years, Indigenous thinkers are claiming the right to interpret Aboriginal Australia. It is a revolutionary change: here, in this compelling book, are its first fruits.’ Nicolas Rothwell
'An exhilarating meditation on different ways of knowing and being. Sand Talk is playful, profound and fiercely original.’ Billy Griffiths
‘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 (starred review)
'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
‘Asks the reader to emotionally connect to with not only the text, but connect to the author through the text.’ Geelong Advertiser
'Clever, funny, thought provoking, sensible and generous all at the same time. A must read!’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘Readable, digestible and quite frankly exciting.’ Fifth Estate
‘Thought-provoking.’ New York Times
‘Sand Talk is an important book. Tyson Yunkaporta an important and original thinker and writer. The book unpacks for us something originally genius about Indigenous thought, which has for too long been dismissed as archaic folk knowledge from old oral cultures of interest only to academics and fetishists. 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, bestselling author of There There
‘Challenges us to think differently – and change the world… It is a timely and insightful read.’ Di Morrissey
'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
'A bold voice among a growing field of Australian Indigenous writing that challenged a lot of my assumptions.’ Dr Larry Marshall

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

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