Pilkington was born at Balfour Downs Station, near the north Western Australian settlement of Jigalong.[2] Her mother, Molly, named her Nugi Garimara, but she was called Doris after Molly's employer at the station, Mary Dunnet, who thought Nugi was "a stupid name". As her birth was unregistered, her birth date was recorded as 1 July 1937 by the Department of Native Affairs.[3] She was taken from her mother to be raised at the Moore River mission when she was three and a half years old.[2] Her younger sister, Annabelle, was also taken and was told she was an orphan, and over the years distanced herself from her Aboriginal heritage.[4] Doris was reunited with her mother 21 years later.[5]
Garimara's Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence is considered a powerful description of the abuses endured by the Stolen Generations. The book was made into an internationally successful film in 2002, directed by Phillip Noyce.[6] Her follow-up book, Under the Wintamarra Tree, details her own life at Moore River and at the Roelands Native Mission and how she managed to escape by enrolling in a nursing school. Home to Mother is her children's edition of Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence. In the four books, Caprice, a Stockman's Daughter, Follow the Rabbit-proof Fence, Home to Mother, and Under the Wintamarra Tree, Pilkington documented three generations of women in her family.[7]
In 1990, Pilkington's book Caprice: A Stockman's Daughter, the first of the trilogy, won the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards' Unpublished Indigenous Writer – The David Unaipon Award. She was appointed co-patron of Australia's State and Federal Sorry Day committee's Journey of Healing in 2002. In May 2008, she was awarded the $50,000 Red Ochre Award which is made to an indigenous artist for their outstanding, lifelong contribution to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts at home and abroad.[8]
The Australia Council for the Arts arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. Since 1993, it has awarded a Red Ochre Award. It is presented to an outstanding Indigenous Australian (Aboriginal Australian or Torres Strait Islander) artist for lifetime achievement.
