Cirrus@Austlit

'Aboriginal life stories during the 1980s and 1990s changed the face of Australian history and literature. Aside from a few important exceptions, prior to these times Aboriginal life stories had not emerged as a genre and the majority of life stories at this time were penned by white writers and were semi-fictional. Sally Morgan’s book My Place (Morgan 1988) marks the beginning of a new genre of Aboriginal life writing and other Aboriginal people followed her lead by publishing their stories. These stories made a significant intervention into Australian history, telling first-hand how Aboriginal people survived under the strict state government laws enforced upon them. It was something of a time of enlightenment for many of Australia’s literati and the general public as Aboriginal people penned their way to a new genre. Now there are many life stories told by Aboriginal people and a developing critical literature growing up around Aboriginal life writing. Oliver Haag has written a comprehensive study of Aboriginal biography and autobiography in his paper, ‘From the Margins to the Mainstream’ (Haag 2008) and traces Aboriginal writing from David Unaipon in 1951, and Theresa Clements in 1954, to the current times. Anne Brewster’s two books on Aboriginal autobiography and biography, Literary Formations: Post-colonialism, nationalism, globalism and Reading Aboriginal Women’s Autobiography (Brewster 1995, 1996), are significant contributions to the field. Both books give insights into Aboriginal writing of life stories, especially the latter, which studies Aboriginal women’s life-story writers such as Ruby Langford and Doris Pilkington (Langford 1988; Pilkington 1991). Drawing on these surveys of the field, I argue that Aboriginal autobiographies are conceptually different from western forms of autobiography in that they spring from prior Indigenous sovereign traditions.'  (Introduction)

'During the last two decades of the 20," century, Aboriginal writers of biography and autobiography opened up new fields of literature in Australian writing. Readers have since been getting different perspectives on Aboriginal people and their lives, the untold version not previously written in the history books by the dominant society. When Aborigines write their life stories, these stories are based on their own personal experiences; the writers are being introspective or subjective. Academic writers and government researchers try to be objective when investigating Aboriginal lives, lifestyles and cultures. These research writings, from such disciplines as anthropology, come from the dominant culture's general concepts of Aboriginal people collectively, and can be biased when comparing Aboriginal lives and cultures with those from the dominant society. Aboriginal writers, in telling their life stories, express their emotions of grief and despair through loss of land and families, and the struggle to survive throughout their lives. Now it is through their literary endeavours that they are rewriting Australia's history; their input in different genres like biography and autobiography are based on the Aborigines' need to reveal another history in Australia, a black history that has been hidden. Through the writer's life experiences, the reader gains a more personalise' account of how Indigenous Australians perceive their respective land, their culture and their people. Poetry, too, like the works of Jack Davis' and  Oogdgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal, helps express their innermost feelings how they see environment, which is contrary to  the dominant culture's views or ideologies. However, except for David Unaipon who wrote in the 1920s, it is only in the last few decades, when more and more Aboriginal people began writing life stories, that Aboriginal literature has been accepted as a legitimate genre within Australian society. These writers give new insights into the different cultures and lifestyles Aborigines, across this country. Their readers will understand that Australia has many diverse diverse Aroriginal cultures that are very different from the dominant society's culture.'(Introduction)

'This book is written in three parts. The first part tells the story of my husband as a young boy growing up in Holland during the 1940s and 1950s, his migration with his family to Australia, and their return to Holland after two years. On their return, he joined the merchant navy, traveled the world, jumped ship in Sydney, and worked around Australia until he met me in Perth, Western Australia, in 1965.

'The second part tells my story of growing up in Aboriginal Australia during the 1940s and 1950s, the racist attitudes and policies, working as a nurse s aide, traveling across Australia, and returning to Perth, where I met my husband in 1965.

'The third part tells of our life together, the racism we encountered, raising our five children, traveling across the Nullabour Plain several times, moving around all the time, living in Holland, returning to Australia, me studying in adult education courses, children growing up and getting married, us becoming grandparents, and me completing my doctorate studies and retiring. I have now come out of retirement to work as an associate professor at Curtin University.' (Publication summary)

'Shadow lines is a deeply moving biography of Stephen Kinnane’s maternal grandmother, Jessie Smith (née Argyle), removed in 1906 from her mother and extended family in Miriwoong country, eastern Kimberley. It also traces the life of his English grandfather, Edward Smith: his childhood, immigration to Western Australia and later marriage to Jessie Argyle. Shadow lines is a remarkable story of a woman’s fight for the right to live unhindered by government policies regarding Aborigines, at a time when Aboriginal lives were forfeit to the whims of white bureaucracy.' (Introduction)

'A fascinating account of a people from the far north Kimberley of Western Australia who have experienced upheaval on a monumental scale. Chalarimeri tells of the customs of his ‘people from the sunrise side’ and what he calls ‘the clash of two cultures’. His views on contemporary issues that are impacting on his beloved country—native title, appropriation of rock art, Aboriginal health and the effects of tourism on the pristine Kimberley wilderness are compelling.' (Source: publishers website)

The author talks about the gulliabity and trust of Aboriginal people of others' motives in regards to their cultural property. She argues that Aboriginal people are 'naive when it comes to protecting their cultural material', but they are learning fast'.

'Culture and identity, suffering and the triumph of survival thread their way through the short stories, poems, legends, song lyrics, essays and commentaries in this... anthology of Aboriginal writing.

Representing a range of regional and cultural differences, age groups and social circumstances, it is a testimony to the importance of the past in the construction of a better future.' Source: Publisher's blurb