Ruby Langford Ginibi

Writer

Ruby Langford Ginibi (1934–2011) was an acclaimed Bundjalung author, historian, and lecturer on Aboriginal history, culture, and politics. Born at the Box Ridge Mission, Coraki, on the north coast of New South Wales, she was raised in Bonalbo and attended high school in Casino. At age fifteen, she moved to Sydney and qualified as a clothing machinist. Her first child was born when she was seventeen; she went on to have a family of nine children and raised them mostly by herself. For many years she lived in tin huts and camped in the bush around Coonabarabran, working at fencing, burning off, lopping and ring-barking, and pegging kangaroo skins. At other times she lived in the Aboriginal areas of Sydney and worked in clothing factories. Later in life, she adopted the name Ginibi, a Bundjalung honorific meaning "black swan," as a significant reclamation of her cultural identity.

Ruby’s landmark autobiography, Don't Take Your Love to Town, was published in 1988 by University of Queensland Press and won the 1989 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Poetry and Prose Award. Now in its thirteenth reprint, the book has been a staple of the VCE and HSC syllabuses for decades, where its presence has acted to counter the traditional teaching in schools of the white history of Australia. In 1994, she was awarded the inaugural History Fellowship by the NSW Ministry for the Arts.

In 2012, Ruby’s story was adapted by Eamon Flack and Leah Purcell as a one person show for Belvoir Street Theatre, which was also directed by and starred Leah Purcell. In 2023, Don’t Take Your Love to Town was republished by University of Queensland Press as part of their First Nations Classics series, and is available physically, digitally and as an audiobook.

Her body of work continued with the book of stories Real Deadly (1992) and My Bundjalung People (1994), a biography of her people published by the University of Queensland Press. Haunted by the Past: Nobby's Story and Others (1999), a tragic account of the life of one of her sons who was imprisoned at an early age for a minor offence, and once institutionalised, spent a great deal of his life in prison, was published by Allen & Unwin and was shortlisted in the 2000 National Biography Awards. Her final major work, All My Mob, was published in 2007.

Ruby Langford’s contribution to her people and to white Australians was honoured by La Trobe University, who in 1998 awarded her an honorary Doctorate of Letters (Honoris Causa). As well, in 1995 she was made an honorary fellow of the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, and in 2003 was made a life member of PEN Australia. In 2005, Ruby Langford was awarded the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Special Award and in 2006, she won the Australia Council for the Arts Writers’ Emeritus Award. In 2007 she was named the Aboriginal Elder of the Year, receiving the award in Darwin from actor Leah Purcell.

For enquiries regarding Ruby Langford Ginibi’s estate, please contact us via email or on 02 9319 7199