Abstract
Not enough critical and creative work focuses on fat bodies and expansive fat presence in contemporary literature by Indigenous people. In the personal narrative "Desirability as Access: Navigating life at the intersection of fat, Black, dark and female" from The Routledge International Handbook of Fat Studies, after sharing the joys and pains of her lived experiences, Nomonde Mxhalisa surmises: "You have to believe in your own magic; in your own wildness; in your own wanton wonderfulness" (2021, p. 209). Drawing on Mxhalisa's first-person call for "magic, wildness and wanton wonderfulness," this essay reads Indigenous fatness through personal narratives of fat, Indigenous expression regarding the textile banner "WHENUA" by Marama Salsano (Ng & amacr;i T & umacr;hoe, Te Aitanga-a-M & amacr;haki, Ng & amacr;ti Porou, Ng & amacr;ti Wairere). The essay then traces fatness and defiance in the poem "Fat Queer Colony" by Andrew Farrell (Wodi Wodi) and in the poem "Big Fat Brown Bitch 1" from the collection Big Fat Brown Bitch by Samoan writer Tusiata Avia, before contemplating human and beyond-human fat presence in the short story "Maggie Sue" by Chelsea Vowel (M & eacute;tis). By bringing together contemporary Indigenous literature in different literary forms from across the world, this essay celebrates the "magic, wild, wanton wonderfulness" of expansive fatness, and simultaneously seeks to expand the waistline of critical and creative writing about fat Indigenous bodies in creative and literary studies.