The National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in collaboration with Australian Consulate-General in Bengaluru is organising a discussion on ‘Why Stories Matter: Law, Poetry and Indigenous Storytelling,’ with Indigenous Australian writers, Ali Cobby Eckermann and Merinda Dutton on Wednesday April 22, 2026 at 5 PM.

This discussion brings together two powerful Indigenous Australian voices, those of Ali Cobby Eckermann and Merinda Dutton, in conversation with Radhika Chitkara, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU. Together, the speakers will explore the power of storytelling to give voice and a seat at the table to communities who are often marginalised. Ali, an award-winning writer and poet, will reflect on how her practice of poetry has shaped her identity, helped her find her voice, and offered her a place at the table. Merinda, an eminent lawyer and an emerging writer, will reflect on law as a form of storytelling, and on how legal systems can enable Indigenous peoples to articulate lived experiences, assert their rights, and challenge dominant narratives. Our speakers will explore the intersections between law and poetry, structure and creativity. The discussion invites students and scholars to reconsider how justice and voice are made and remade through stories.

About the Speakers

Ali Cobby Eckermann is an award-winning Yankunytjatjara poet. Her first collection little bit long time launched her literary career in 2009. In 2013 she won the Kenneth Slessor Prize and Book Of The Year (NSW) for Ruby Moonlight. In 2014, Ali was the inaugural recipient of the Tungkunungka Pintyanthi Fellowship at Adelaide Writers Week, and the first Aboriginal writer to attend the International Writing Program at University of Iowa. In 2017 she received a Windham Campbell Award for Poetry from Yale University. She was awarded a Literature Fellowship by the Australian Council for the Arts in 2018, and in 2019 was awarded a prestigious Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in Italy. She is the Earth, a verse novel, won the 2024 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Book of the Year and Indigenous Writers Prize and was shortlisted for the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards and the Stella Prize.

Merinda Dutton is a Gumbaynggirr and Barkindji woman emerging writer, First Nations critic, and the co-founder of Blackfulla Bookclub, an online community for First Nations stories. In 2019 Dutton was recognised for her legal aid work with Indigenous communities and awarded the National Indigenous Legal Professional of the Year.

Radhika Chitkara is Assistant Professor at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru. Her work is grounded in long-standing engagements with civil liberties, women’s, and land rights movements in northern and eastern India. As a legal researcher and human rights practitioner, she has undertaken primary and doctrinal research, investigations into rights violations, documentation, advocacy, direct legal representation, and legal literacy initiatives, both independently and in collaboration with civil society collectives and NGOs.