'At the age of five, Donna was taken away from her natural family and sent to a foster family in Newcastle. Donna reflects back on her childhood memories of living in the bush with her brothers and her removal to the city, becoming an only child in a white family.Donna recalls her struggle with her identity - remembering traditions and customs of her old life in the outback and the adjustments she has had to make in strange city. Donna (aged 40) retells her life story with stark simplicity and honesty . She openly discusses the pain and isolation she has felt at not belonging or feeling at home with the society she has been brought up in. Her desperation took her close to suicide.This is a powerfully sad yet also uplifting story - sad because of Donna's long struggle to re-establish her family and culture and coming to terms with her own views about Aboriginal people; and uplifiting because of Donna's deep faith, her own strong family ties with her foster mother and her husband and sons.Donna's story is retold with passion but with an absence of bitterness as she tells of the strangeness, and heartbreak of her experiences, and of the kindness of her adoptive family.' (Random House)
Contesting Childhood : Autobiography, Trauma, and Memory
New Brunswick
:
Rutgers University Press
,
2010
Z1836606
2010
single work
criticism
'The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed a surge in the publication and popularity of autobiographical writings about childhood. Linking literary and cultural studies, Contesting Childhood draws on a varied selection of works from a diverse range of authors - from first-time to experienced writers. Kate Douglas explores Australian accounts of the Stolen Generation, contemporary American and British narratives of abuse, the bestselling memoirs of Andrea Ashworth, Augusten Burroughs, Robert Drewe, Mary Karr, Frank McCourt, Dave Pelzer, and Lorna Sage, among many others." "Drawing on trauma and memory studies and theories of authorship and readership, Contesting Childhood offers commentary on the triumphs, trials, and tribulations that have shaped this genre. Douglas examines the content of the narratives and the limits of their representations, as well as some of the ways in which autobiographies of youth have become politically important and influential. This study enables readers to discover how stories configure childhood within cultural memory and the public sphere.' (Publisher's blurb)
Contesting Childhood : Autobiography, Trauma, and Memory
New Brunswick
:
Rutgers University Press
,
2010
Z1836606
2010
single work
criticism
'The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed a surge in the publication and popularity of autobiographical writings about childhood. Linking literary and cultural studies, Contesting Childhood draws on a varied selection of works from a diverse range of authors - from first-time to experienced writers. Kate Douglas explores Australian accounts of the Stolen Generation, contemporary American and British narratives of abuse, the bestselling memoirs of Andrea Ashworth, Augusten Burroughs, Robert Drewe, Mary Karr, Frank McCourt, Dave Pelzer, and Lorna Sage, among many others." "Drawing on trauma and memory studies and theories of authorship and readership, Contesting Childhood offers commentary on the triumphs, trials, and tribulations that have shaped this genre. Douglas examines the content of the narratives and the limits of their representations, as well as some of the ways in which autobiographies of youth have become politically important and influential. This study enables readers to discover how stories configure childhood within cultural memory and the public sphere.' (Publisher's blurb)
