My Place
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
A moving and quite remarkable account of personal discovery.
In 1982, Sally Morgan travelled back to her grandmother's birthplace. What started as a tentative search for information about her family, turned into an overwhelming emotional and spiritual pilgrimage.
My Place is a moving account of a search for truth into which a whole family is gradually drawn, finally freeing the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories. This autobiographical fiction explores themes of Aboriginal identity, racism, and the importance of family. For readers interested in Australian history and personal journeys.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Growing up in Perth, Australia, in an impoverished, but lively and chaotic household dominated by her mother and grandmother, Morgan was 15 before she realized that she and her four siblings were of mixed Aboriginal descent. In this autobiography, she describes her efforts to identify with and record her family heritage. Oral histories gathered from her reticent and still fearful mother and grandmother, anxious to shield their children from the social stigma of their origins, are supplemented with accounts from relatives she tracked down in Northwest Australia's Aboriginal Reserves and livestock stations. They vividly describe the suffering caused by a government policy that took half-caste Aboriginal children away from their mothers. Although some Aborigines have successfully competed in Australian society, the author seems to agree with her uncle's contention that colonialism is not yet over and does not accord Aborigines either equalityes pecially land rightsor freedom to pursue their own way of life.
