Pemulwuy Weeatunga Books in Order

Pemulwuy Weeatunga is the pen name used by John M. Wenitong for The Fethafoot Chronicles. Born in Gladstone, Queensland, Wenitong is an Indigenous Australian man of Kabi Kabi Aboriginal and South Sea Islander heritage, with additional Nepalese, Indian, and Sri Lankan family roots.

His connection to Queensland runs through both family and work. His Kabi Kabi people are described as caretakers of Country along the southeast Queensland coast, from the Fraser Island area to Moreton Island.

Before publishing fiction, Wenitong worked in Queensland railways and construction, and spent time in Aboriginal health. Serious construction injuries later pushed him toward study, opening a different path in his thirties.

In 1990, he began a Bachelor of Arts degree at Central Queensland University, majoring in Literature and Aboriginal Studies. He started at age 36 and completed the degree around ten years later while working in a university multimedia section.

That was a long road into storytelling.

Along the way, Wenitong also earned a certificate in Film and Television Production in Sydney. In 2004, he moved with his family to Aurukun on Cape York. There he worked with Tanya Major and others on the Higher Expectations Program, a scholarship initiative intended to support secondary students from remote Indigenous communities in continuing their education.

His fiction grew from an interest in sharing stories shaped by Aboriginal history, Country, spiritual traditions, and the responsibilities people have to one another. He has said that encouraging young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to read and write was one reason he wanted to publish Aboriginal fiction.

The Fethafoot Chronicles began with Nyarla and the Circle of Stones in 2014. The linked tales move across very different times and places, from ancient Australia and Lake Mungo to nineteenth-century Tasmania and Louisiana, then into modern detective fiction and an asteroid-threat story in The Seventh Veil.

The books are not built around one hero alone. Nyarla and the Circle of Stones follows a young warrior facing a deadly threat near Uluru, while The Contest and The Bunya-nut Games spend time with Jundabara and his family. Galku's Revenge brings Detective John Pomeroy into a modern investigation, and Silent Sky returns to the clan's darker, more dangerous work.

Across the series, Wenitong mixes adventure, mystery, historical conflict, family life, and supernatural elements. The Fethafoot are presented as secretive spirit-travelling warriors who step in when communities face trouble, giving each book a different setting and problem while keeping the wider clan at its center.

In biographical notes published with his books, Wenitong described living in Far North Queensland, writing further fiction, playing guitar, taking nature photographs, and writing poetry and songs. He is also a father and grandfather. Those everyday details fit the practical, conversational spirit that runs through his work.