Lenora Thaker

Lenora Thaker is a proud Torres Strait Islander woman (Erub-le and Mabuiag-le), born and raised on Gimuy Walubarra Yidinji and Yirrganydji country in far north Queensland. In 2021 she became the first Torres Strait Islander to win the Writing NSW Boundless Indigenous Writer’s Mentorship. She is a descendant of the Torres Strait Islanders of Cairns Malaytown (a makeshift village cobbled around swampland, late 1800s to early 1950s), who are the inspiration for her first novel. With a working title, ‘The Pearl of Shantytown’, her book is soon to be published by Text Publishing.