Mark McKenna on his life’s work

Sunday 4 July 2021, 2.30 to 4.30pm

Manning Clark House, 11 Tasmania Circle, Forrest

When Mark McKenna set out to write a history of the centre of Australia, he had no idea what he would discover. One event in 1934 – the shooting at Uluru of Aboriginal man Yokununna by white policeman Bill McKinnon and the subsequent Commonwealth inquiry – stood out as a mirror of racial politics in the Northern Territory at the time. But then, through speaking with the families of both killer and victim, McKenna unearthed new evidence that transformed the historical record and the meaning of the event for today. As he explains, ‘Every thread of the story connected to the present in surprising ways.’ In a sequence of powerful revelations, McKenna explores what truth-telling and reconciliation look like in practice. Mark will be in conversation with the distinguished ANU historian, Professor Nicholas Brown.

Professor Mark McKenna is one of Australia’s leading historians, based at the University of Sydney. He is the author of several prize-winning books, including From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories, Looking for Blackfellas’ Point and An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark, now in its 4^th edition, which won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for nonfiction and the Victorian, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australian premiers’ awards. His most recent book, published this year by Black Inc, is Return to Uluru.