Flourishing in Country: an examination of well-being in Australian YA fiction

This article is the result of a collaboration between two academics-one Indigenous and one non-Indigenous-to investigate the representation of Indigeneity in two contemporary YA novels. Melissa Lucashenko's killing Darcy is narrated by multiple Indigenous and non-Indigenous characters, whereas Clare Atkins's Nona and Me is told from the perspective of a white character and explores her relationship with an Indigenous community. Cultural identity forms a significant part of well-being, and this article investigates versions of sufficient well-being. It explores how the novels represent flourishing subjects-both Indigenous and non-Indigenous-in the context of Australia as it struggles to come to terms with its colonial past and demonstrates how cognitive mapping replaces damaging colonial assumptions about Indigenous Peoples with a model of overcoming.