In this stunningly inventive and thought-provoking collection, 2022 David Unaipon winner Mykaela Saunders poses the question: what might country, community and culture look like if First Nations sovereignty was asserted? Each of the stories in Always Will Be is set in its own future version of the Tweed. In one, a group of girls plot their escape from an institution they have no memory of entering. In another, two men make a final visit to the country they love as they contemplate a new life in a faraway place. Saunders imagines different scenarios for how the local Aboriginal community might exercise their sovereignty – reclaiming country, exerting full self-determination, or incorporating non-Indigenous people into the social fabric – while practising creative, ancestrally approved ways of living with changing climates. Epic in scope, and with a diverse cast of characters, Always Will Be is a forward-thinking collection that refuses cynicism and despair, and instead offers captivating stories that celebrate Goori ways of being, knowing, doing – and becoming.
