Salt by Bruce Pascoe | Black Inc.

Salt: Selected Stories and Essays

Book club notes

You might also like

Blue background with dark blue and white illustrations of flowers and plants behind block of yellow with dark blue text

About the author

Bruce Pascoe

Bruce Pascoe is an award-winning writer and a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man. He is a board member of First Languages Australia and Professor of Indigenous Knowledge at the University of Technology Sydney. In 2018 he was named Dreamtime Person of …

More about Bruce Pascoe



Praise for Salt

Salt demonstrates why Bruce Pascoe’s voice is important to the country.’ —Kim Scott

‘A paradigm shift ... a wonderful expanse of thinking and storytelling ... In prose that is funny in one moment and devastating the next, Pascoe moves us from wry humour [to] the deep sadness that follows the wonder of discovering a history of richness and fullness deliberately obscured.’ —Readings

‘Wonderfully eclectic ... Salt is layered with tender, ribald, and at times dark characterisations of people, place, memory, and belonging – deeply informed by Pascoe’s humanist values.’ —Australian Book Review 

‘One of our country’s greatest thinkers ... Salt is essential reading for everyone who loved Dark Emu, and is a fascinating foray into the mind of one of Australia’s most treasured writers.’ —Readings

‘Pascoe writes passionately about the richness of Aboriginal culture, especially the long history of land cultivation, and uses words such as “justice” and “decency” to explain the need to understand Aboriginal history. Powerful, stimulating writing.’ —Good Weekend

‘Pascoe stakes a claim as a gifted storyteller as well as a reader of history. Salt is layered with tender, ribald, and at times dark characterisations of people, place, memory, and belonging – deeply informed by Pascoe’s humanist values.’ —Australian Book Review

‘The poetry of Pascoe’s writing makes it tempting to devour his words in one sitting, but this is a book worth savouring.’ —Law Society Journal

‘We see how generously Pascoe casts a cloak of words around us to enjoin us in his visions of Australian cultural and natural life.’ —Canberra TImes

‘An enthralling, terrifically crafted and astonishing anthology that rubs figurative salt into the wound that is our collective and often wilful ignorance about our First Nations people and their 100 000 year-old connection to the land.’ —Good Reading

‘The stories and essays of Salt succeed in doing what the mineral of its title is known for doing: this writing irritates and hurts, yet it preserves and makes possible a return to the meat of the matter of Australia.’ —Readings Monthly