...vergogna!



Pubblicato nel 1987, “My place” è un libro autobiografico in cui l’autrice australiana, Sally Morgan, racconta la storia della propria famiglia.
Partendo dal racconto della propria infanzia e adolescenza fa luce su una lenta presa di coscienza delle origini famigliari.
Qualche battuta dei compagni di classe si tramuta in sospetto che porta alla fatidica domanda:
«Da dove veniamo?»
Perché quello che è messo è in dubbio e l’appartenenza stessa all’identità australiana.
La madre e la nonna fanno muro è imperterrite rispondono di avere origini indiane, perché ogni altra nazionalità è meglio dell’essere aborigeni.
Parallela alla storia drammatica di un padre alcolizzato e traumatizzato dall’esperienza della guerra, la Morgan racconta dell’ingenuità con cui lei ed i fratelli accettano di essere indiani.

Una prima parte che, nonostante la tematica, è scritta con un tono leggero, poi – come giustamente ci si aspetta- c’è la rivelazione di appartenere ad un’altra Storia e la decisone di scriver un libro che rivendichi il diritto di affermazione dell'identità rubata ad un popolo.

Così i racconti del prozio, della madre e della nonna ricostruiscono e fanno emergere la segregazione a cui gli aborigeni del nord furono sottoposti.
La cosiddetta stolen generation, ossia una generazione di bambini che dal 1909 fino agli anni ’50, furono sottratti alle madri aborigene in quanto meticci, figli nati dagli stupri compiuti dai padroni bianchi separati e reclusi nelle missioni cancellando le loro vere origini.
Un preciso intento governativo di fare in modo che questo estinguesse la popolazione originaria.
Un inganno perfido e legiferato che rappresenta una delle pagine più nere dell'Australia.


” “L’altro giorno sono andata alla Battye Library, mamma.”
“A fare cosa?”
“È una biblioteca di storia. Di storia dell’Australia Occidentale. Volevo documentarmi sugli aborigeni.”
“Oh,” fece mamma incuriosita. “Hai scoperto niente di interessante?”
“Eccome. Ho scoperto che ci sono un sacco di cose di cui vergognarsi.”
“Di cui dovremmo vergognarci noi?”
“No, di cui dovrebbe vergognarsi l’Australia.”

(non metto stelline a memorie ed autobiografie di questo genere)non-dimentico oceania real ...more24 s Chrissie2,811 1,445

Three or four stars? It is difficult to choose between the two.

This is an important book. It needed to be written, for the author but more importantly for us. It shows how it has ben to be an Australian aborigine during the 20th century.

The author, born in 1951, was raised to believe she was white, her faint color due to Indian descent. This was not true! In this book she writes of how she came to know of her aboriginal background. As she uncovers the truth, we learn of the nation’s racial discrimination. We see what has happened to her mother, her grandmother and her siblings. It is thorough these lives that the discriminatory practices become personal. “White lies”, pun intended, were made in an effort to prevent pain and suffering.

I am glad to have read the book for what I have learned. Parts have a strong emotional impact. However, its format could have been improved. Better editing is needed. Inconsequential information should have been cut. Information told by one member of the family is repeated by another. Despite this repetition, it remains difficult at times to keep track of who is who. I would have preferred a more cohesive and tighter telling. The presentation is messy, rather than being clean, neat and well organized.

Through the grandmother’s story we glimpse sensory abilities out of the ordinary. I read with wonder, curiosity and interest, although I I do not fully understand. I cannot judge the validity of the premonitions spoken of.

Melodie Reynolds narrates the audiobook well. She speaks with an Australian accent. I did not have trouble understanding. Four stars for the narration. Often an Australian accent can be difficult to follow, and this was not so here.2021-read audible-us australia ...more23 s April (Aprilius Maximus)1,125 6,479

“Let me pass this way but once and do what good I can, I shall not pass this way again.”

representation: author is of Aboriginal descent, from the Palku people of the Pilbara.

[trigger warnings are listed at the bottom of this review and may contain spoilers]

?????

sally morgan is such an incredible storyteller! i loved hearing her and her family's story <3

trigger warnings: domestic abuse, alcoholism, loss of loved ones, suicide, attempted sexual assault by a family member, animal death, terrible teachers, detailed description of a cut on arm, racism, slavery, murder, forced separation from family, physical abuse, death of children, sexual harassment by a teacher, descriptions of war, PTSD, terminal illness (cancer), mentions of rape. aussie-indigenous favourites16 s Lisa3,448 453

My Place, by Sally Morgan is now an Australian Classic, but it wasn’t when I first read it back in 1988, Australia’s bicentennial year. many Australians, I was shocked to read this deeply moving memoir which revealed without bitterness or rancour a chastening story of endemic racism in our country. I had thought I was an educated person and this book made me realise to my dismay that I knew nothing about the Aboriginal heritage that underpins Australian identity. When I saw My Place as an audio book, I wanted to revisit this memoir, to test its power in the 21st century when Morgan’s voice is now one of many Aboriginal Australians telling their disconcerting stories. Let me assure you, it has lost nothing of its impact…

Born in Perth, Western Australia, Sally Morgan is a year older than I am. She and her siblings were brought up to answer questions about their colour by saying that they were of Indian origin, a strategy her mother and grandmother hoped would shield them from the racism of the schoolyard. They believed that they were protecting the children by denying their Aboriginal descent, from the Palku/Baligu people of the Pilbara, and keeping the children in ignorance of it.

But Sally’s adolescence brought rebellion and stubborn questioning, and she embarked on a relentless quest to find out who she really was.

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/02/20/my...audio-book australia c20th ...more14 s MichelleAuthor 7 books108

I don’t know how anyone could read this and not have their heart broken for the black fellas (or Aborigines) and those who’ve fought in wars.
In many ways it was quite a tragedy, and as the story continued, I had a lump in my throat , because it actually happened.
Just read it – that’s all I can say. You won’t be sorry when you do.
Thank you Sally, for opening my eyes a little wider. 2012 living-books14 s Claire703 307

Originally published in 1987, this nonfiction title is both a mini biography and part memoir as Sally Morgan, an Australian of Aboriginal descent, begins the book by writing about her childhood from the naive perspective of not knowing her own identity. As a result, the reader too, reads from this perspective as Sally recounts events in her life as they happen and refrains from judging them.

When the children at school ask about her skin colour and she later asks her mother, it is suggested that she tell them they are Indian.

In the household, they live with their mother Gladys and father Bill, who is unwell and sometimes dangerous. He is a war veteran of able body suffering from what today would be diagnosed as PTSD. Their Nan also lives with them and as Sally gets to know Nan's brother Arthur, she learns that they are not Indian, they are of Aboriginal origin. Confronting her grandmother elicits no information at all, she refuses to speak of her past, not of who her father was and suggests that Sally forget about it.

Arthur agrees to tell his story and over a period of 3 months, when Arthur is in his 90's, she records their conversations and learns about his life and a little more about his sister's, her Nan. They are the children of an Aboriginal woman and the white stationmaster whose farm they lived and worked on.

They lived during an era described as "living under the Act" when Australia had laws that not only dispossessed Aborginal people of their land and culture and traditions, but also forcibly removed their children from them, did not allow them to raise their own children, in effect owned them and treated them similar to slaves. People Nan grew up under this Act and lived their lives under the effect of the trauma it brought. The only way they could see to protect their children was to lie about and withhold their heritage from their grandchildren.

This story is Sally's persistant endeavour to find that lineage, those lost family members and that heritage and to find out the story of her grandmother who was too scared to tell it and said she would take her secrets to the grave.

I absolutely loved every word of it, the way it is told, the close connection this family has to each other, the evidence of a spiritual connection to their ancestry and the spirits, even though they have not been raised with this knowledge.

The real life characters are vividly drawn, the dialogue authentic and the story's of Arthur, Gladys and Daisy (Nan) beautifully recollected. A legacy for this family, a gift to the Australian nation and to the world at large, to have the opportunity to gain insight into a period of history, little known from this perspective.

Highly Recommended.

australian-literature autobiography classic10 s Becky1,448 1,803

3.5 Stars--
I honestly have to say that I probably never would have picked up this book if it wasn't sent to me by a friend. Mostly because I never knew it existed, but that's beside the point, hehe. I'm not really a memoir reader, but I am trying to read more non-fiction this year, so this blended perfectly with this goal.

My Place tells the story of how Sally Morgan discovered who she is. In a way, it was a very touching story, and I'm glad that I read it. I've never really given much thought to my own family history when it comes to race, but then race has never been something that I think about. I register different skin tones, yes, but I can't say that I label or judge people because of them. It's just not how I think. Which is why racism makes me so angry. I just don't understand the way that certain people feel that they are better than others because of the color of their skin.

Sally's story is a quest to find out about her racial origins. To make a long story short, she discovers that she is Aboriginal, and then sets about learning the stories of her family members to find out why this is such a shameful secret that must be hidden at all costs - even to the point of blatantly lying.

To be perfectly honest, I know next to nothing about Australian history, and still less about Aboriginal Australian history. This book has definitely piqued my interest, so I think that I'll be reading other books about this so that I can get a fuller picture. Morgan describes a sort of bonded-slavery as being the main interaction between "whitefellas" and "blackfellas" (Aboriginals). White people essentially forced Aboriginal people into servitude, took away their children if they were of mixed-blood ("half-caste") and looked white, and generally made their lives exceptionally difficult according to how dark their skin is. I say that this is a sort of bonded-slavery because even though it is technically slavery, with laws prohibiting Aboriginals travelling without a permit, etc, it's more indentured servitude, as there were wages involved - even though they weren't paid most of the time. Not to mention that Aboriginals could be let go and hired into service elsewhere. They were owned, in a way, but more in terms of lack of options than actual slave ownership.

Not that this makes it any better. Slavery and racism and bigotry and ignorance are slavery and racism and bigotry and ignorance. The forms that they take matter not one bit. Aboriginal people were taken from their homes, and forced to work for nothing or next to nothing for white people who held everything over their heads at unattainable heights. It was an accomplishment just to survive. And this, still going on in the early parts of the 20th century. It's shameful.

It's also shameful that people should be made to feel so ashamed of their heritage and history that they would deny it. It's understandable that people would want to deny what they are to avoid prejudice and hatred, but it's incredibly sad that the very things that define us are the things that we wish to be rid of in order to be accepted.

I feel it is an important book, and that it brings awareness to something that people outside of Australia are probably completely oblivious to, and people inside Australia would ly wish to forget. Just as people in the US would to forget that we were slave-owners once too. I don't understand this seemingly universal drive for a group of people to wish to have dominance over other groups of people. I refuse to believe that this is an ingrained trait.

Anyway, I wish that I could actually give this book a higher rating. I do feel it is important, but I wish that it was a little more accessible. It feels it was written with native Australians in mind - people who would already know what a goanna is, and what a didgeridoo is, etc. Things are mentioned but not explained, so there's a lot that has to be looked up in order to get the full story. It feels it was written for people who already have an academic knowledge of Australia's Aboriginal history, but now just need a few more details to really understand. In a way, this book gives them that, but not with the depth that it could have.

It is written in very simple and straightforward language, which, to me, depersonalizes the story a bit too much. Granted, this should be a story in which you could fit yourself in there and think "This could have happened to anyone... this could have happened to ME and MY family," but really it is a personal story about Sally's family, and the way it was written was too detached to really allow the reader in. The story told us what happened ("And then I was beaten with a whip.") but in a very clinical fashion which makes it hard to feel for someone who doesn't seem to be upset themselves. After telling her mother's story, Sally mentions that she felt close to her mother, but that was all there was. Just that mention. Sally mentions later that there are "depths to {the story} that she knows that she will never plumb." Which is true, but telling us that there are depths isn't the same as communicating them. I would have d to feel I was being told the story directly, not a fact-based reproduction of it. I know that this story is a memoir, and that the information in it relies on the information that the contributors are willing or able to share. But it just seems to me that there was a lack of personalization that would have really brought the story together and made it something amazing.

Also there were quite a few typos and errors in the text, which was distracting. One in particular really threw me for a loop - Sally's mother is relaying the story of her father's death, and how she was concerned about his afterlife whereabouts, so she asked "Gold" to show her where he was. I racked my brains for about a minute, trying to think of who Gold was, when it dawned on me that it was supposed to be "God".

And that brings me to my next point, which is that there is a "spiritual realism" aspect to parts of the book. Several of the family members are stated to have seen visions, both of the future and of God and angels, and to have seen signs and omens and the . I feel this part of the story wasn't very believable. It was relayed as fact, as was everything else, but I'm a natural skeptic, so I found it hard to believe in visions of angels and the . I'm not saying that they didn't happen - I don't know what they saw or didn't see - I just would have d for there to have been a little explanation as to the spiritual nature of Aboriginal people. Parts struck me as being almost voodooish in nature (and this is NOT meant in the "EVIL BLACK MAGIC" way, but as the spiritual religious way), but also mixed in with Christianity in a way that just... I don't know. It didn't feel right for some reason. it was tacked on to show how they just knew things would work out, but the history for these feelings wasn't prsented to make it believeable to me. Again, I'm not saying that it didn't happen, because I can't know that. People's faith and spiritualism takes all different shapes and forms, and that's perfectly fine by me. I just wish that there was a basis - a tradition - that explained that Aboriginal people are more in tune with this part of life than other people. This is barely hinted at, but not in the way that I'd to be able to appreciate these sections.

Overall, I did enjoy the book. It was a quick read, and has started an interest in Australian history that I wouldn't have had before. I will definitely look into more books in the future to see if I can get a fuller understanding of the way life was there, and how it is now. I appreciate having read this book, at having my horizons widened.

Thanks for sharing this book with me, Jon! :)non-fiction reviewed social-justice ...more9 s Clare Bear122 32

I haven't finished this book but I give a full five stars. It is written in an honest, uncompromising Australian vernacular without seeming to be a caricature of Australians or the way some speak. I read this and Sally Morgan has made me crack up and weep and wish I knew way more about our indigenous history and languages. I am only 31 but I do not remember being taught anything remotely what I have learnt from this book. My history department was too busy teaching us about the glorified Captain Cook, snore. I recommend this for every Australian, and I can't wait to read more of her work.a-classic life-stories7 s Emmeline14

I read this book in year 11 for Literature. It is a 440-page tome, but the extent of our analysis was: “So this is a memoir. How much of memoir is true and why does it matter?” I was a bit disappointed. Why did I do all that reading to ask such a basic question?

There’s obviously a lot more to get from this book, and re-reading it eight years later I appreciate its richness. Morgan starts off with a chronological story of her childhood and growing up, right through to getting married, having kids, and starting the quest for Aboriginal identity that forms the basis of the book. There is a lot of talk about ‘the book’ in the actual book. It starts to take on this almost mythical quality. People in the story are so doubtful that Sally* will actually write the book that I was drawn into this framework to the point that I disbelieved its very material existence even as I read from it. Needless to say, this was a strange experience.

The structure of the story is circular. It starts in the past and comes up to the present, but within the narrative there are chapters written from the perspective of other characters, based on transcripts from interviews. A lot of these different perspectives are about the same places and times, even the same stories from a different perspective. It is drawing a circle in the dirt, and then going forward, but then going back to the circle, running back over it, going deeper into the dirt. I love this story style. It is not painful and hard to follow flashbacks can be; it is a rich way of telling a story.

Sally’s Nan grew up on a station in Northern Western Australia. When the family moved to a big house in Perth she went with them. It was there that Sally’s mother was born. I’m not going to go into the story much more, except to say that all the narrators in the book tell it it is. They don’t make caricatures of villainous white station masters or anything that. Even the worst-behaving characters are not one-dimensionalised. In a way, this stark stating of fact can make terrible things that happen even worse than if it were overdramatised.
A central theme of the book is the fact that Sally even writing the book is a really radical idea. She never even knew she was Aboriginal growing up. Her mother and grandmother were very keen on secrets. They had seen first-hand what it meant to be Aboriginal and did not want the children to suffer they had. So for Sally to write the book was very hard, badgering her family to open up. Sally was adamant that they needed to tell things from their perspective. Things had only ever been told from the white people’s perspective.

When I finished reading, I made the mistake of looking online to find out something that had been obliquely referred to in the text. I stumbled upon what turned out to be a website that set out to argue that the Stolen Generation wasn’t real, or at the very least was not as bad as it had been made out to be. I discovered that the white family from the station, who Sally’s Mum and Nan had grown up with, were very upset and hurt by the things she had written in the book. One of the daughters had written a response book, telling the story as she and her family knew it. Ties between the two families, once close, were now severed.

The book is not vindictively written. The white family is not portrayed as evil or anything that, though not everything written about them is flattering. I can understand why they would be upset.

However, what stunned me about reading the family’s responses to the book was their white privilege. In the history of white settlement of Australia, all the history books written and stories told by white people have been from the perspective of white people. That is white privilege. But the thing about privilege is when it is challenged, its nasty cousin, entitlement, arks up. By writing My Place, Sally Morgan changed the monopoly of pioneering history in the area from 100% white perspective to a measly 99.98%. And yet the backlash is vicious.

It’s not all negative. My Place is a best-seller, and it’s taught in schools – hopefully usually better than it was taught in my school. Having the story from an Aboriginal perspective is incredibly powerful, and helpful for relations between Aboriginal people and Settlers.

What always strikes me about memoir, especially memoir written by women, is the sheer bravery of it. Being willing to risk face and relationships to tell your story because it’s the right thing to do. My hat goes off to Sally Morgan for a well-written and powerful book.


*It is normally disrespectful to refer to authors, especially female authors, by their first names, but in this case I am referring to Sally the character in the story, not Sally Morgan the author.
australian-women-writers6 s Liz97 13

I found this book incredibly sad to read. The information was nothing new, I am all too familiar with the issues and treatment of Indigenous Australians. Nan was right, don't ever trust doctors, the Government or wealthy people.....very wise.

We to feel Australia has made huge leaps in the treatment and handling of Indigenous people but it's not true. It's what we say to ourselves so we don't feel too bad about the blackfellas rotting away in the middle of outback Australia, out of sight out of mind.....unless of course there is a large mineral supply on their land then it's pack up and move along. They have disgustingly high mortality rates for a first world country, they still suffer and die from illnesses and diseases that have been easily treatable in this country for 50 years! But the 1980's and 1990's are over and it's not too hip to care about Abo's anymore. The rights and well being of (illegal) Asylum seekers and the starving in the developing world are more important to the PC thugs now, so unfortunately for Eddie Mabo out there your time in the sun is over, I'm sure you'll be fine, you've got the Government and public servants to look out for you....poor bastards.

Morgan is very kind and gentle with her opinions of white people in this book, most of the appalling things white people have done are only hinted at and she is very careful to never come off as overly angry...just a little hurt.

To the people leaving saying this book was proved wrong......... BY WHOM???!!! What evidence do you have that these things were not factual? Because the bigoted slave owner Drake-Brockman family denied those ugly details of rape and incest? Ok well if the people who perpetrated the crime say its not true then it mustn't be true.....wow think of the money the state would save in criminal trials if all the evidence you needed to return a verdict of not guilty was for the accused to take the stand and say 'well it's not true, i didn't do it'. Use logic people.....But i guess the attitudes of old run very deep in the Australian psyche.....if it's a blackfellas word against a white person's word we all know who's word should be trusted.

Then there are the allegations that Morgan and her publisher constructed the book and I have read all the webpages and from what I read people have taken it out of context. The editor helped her construct the structure of her story and how she was going to put her family's story into something white people would want to read and not be too put off by in order to highlight Aboriginal issues and suffering i.e don't be too hard on the whites because white Australia is still a little touchy when it comes to admitting the awful things they did'.

I am by no means one of those inner city PC thug bleeding hearts that feels we are all special and one of God's creatures or a champagne socialist....no; I'm just an empathetic person who uses logic. And it is still obvious to me that White Australian still holds so much hostility and resentment towards Aboriginal people and I just can't relate to it.

This book is an important part of Australian history whether white people it or not because it is about dealing with the fact that these blackfellas and their treatment are an important part of the Australian identity and we all need to accept their existence and their treatment and get over it. They were and still are treated appallingly, their land WAS stolen, they were used as SLAVES, their women were RAPED by white men and their children were STOLEN from them. Deal with it, accept it.have-book ozstralian-books you-can-t-handle-the-truth6 s Peyton Stafford125 49

This book really touched me. I first became aware of the situation of the Aboriginal peoples in Australia when I was working for Blackwell North America during the early 1980s. We provided books to several Australian academic libraries, and they seemed to order everything on North American Indians. One of the other Blackwellians, who had visited Australia several times on business, told me how bleak life was for the Aboriginals, and that many Australians were trying to figure out how to improve the situation.

Now, years later, I met a young lady from Australia at the gym I go to, and we got to chatting about publishing and books. She lent me her copy of My Place. I didn't think I would enjoy it, but once I opened it I put it on top of my reading stack and read it straight through.

In some ways, My Place reminded me of other books that explore the difficulties of uncovering family history when the elders of the family are doing their best to hide it. That is basically what the book is about, but it is well-written, completely true, and includes a lot of fascinating details unique to Australian. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in Australia, Aboriginal life, civil rights, women's issues, family history, and most of all with an interest in the process of finding out who one really is.australia civil-rights family ...more6 s Nancy1,006 44

Finish date: 17 November 2017
Genre: memoir
Rating: B
Review: This is one one of the first books written from the Aboriginal point of view. "No one knows what it was for us.” (pg 208). Sally Morgan’s family shame… was so strong that she had not been told she was indigenous. She was well into her teens when her mother admitted the truth. (pg 170-71). Sally Morgan’s book My Place was written 30 years ago. But is is still a very relevant. She is an excellent storyteller…and her family history will touch a heart string.
It touched mine!

Last thoughts: I started this book My Place yesterday in the train. I never looked out the window to look at the landscape speedingbhy because this story was too engrossing. The book really picks up steam in chapter ‘Owning up’ (pg 165). Pages 7-164 deal with Morgan’s childhood. Basic info…but not overly interesting. So you must decide if ‘skimming’ the beginning…of the book is a good idea. Despite the slow start… the book engaged and entertained me.
That is what good books do!


Review 20176 s Kathryn849

This wasn’t part of my school’s curriculum when I was going through, and I believe that nowadays it is often one of the required reads for students. I think this is a great idea - it opens communication about a range of issues, but particularly what it was to grow up as an indigenous Australian in the 1920s and 1930s, and also what it is to grow up not knowing your family history.

Sally tells this as her story, but also incorporates her great-uncle’s, grandmother’s, and mother's stories.
4-stars audiobooks australian-authors ...more6 s Aaliyah73 50

I knew next to nothing about aboriginal history before reading this for my postcolonial module, and now I want to read all I can on the topic. This is an incredibly moving memoir, and it made me laugh as many times as it made me cry. It's not the most perfectly written book, but it's beautiful nonetheless. 6 s Jackie521 64

Another book I’m glad I picked up thanks to a fellow Viner. This is a non-fiction account of the life of Aboriginal professor, artist and author Sally Morgan. The book goes through her memories of childhood dealing with her sometimes abusive father, the struggles of her mother and grandmother trying to provide for Sally and her siblings, and her discovery of her Aboriginal culture.

Prior to this book I had no idea of the Aboriginal culture or Austrialia’s history for that matter. This was a good introduction into the topic. Morgan’s book not only touches on Morgan’s own personal story and struggle, but also that of her grandmother and her great uncle helping to give a well rounded view of the cultural and generational change towards national acceptance.

Morgan has an honest way of writing, which makes it almost seem she is just chatting with you and telling you her story of discovery. There were moments that I was cracking up at her smartassness and other moments that were genuinely touching. By the end of the book I was sobbing uncontrollably because Morgan’s grandmother reminded me of my own grandmother who passed away. It made me miss her and wonder what stories I may have missed from her.
2010-read5 s Julia67 20

I grew up in Washington State, the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and in our history classes we studied Colonial America and Africa. Therefore, I only had the information my mother gave me about Aboriginal suffering.
You can be sure that upon my arrival into an Australian history class I was blown away by how much I absolutely did not know about Aboriginal oppression in Australia. My history teacher made quick work of introducing us to the racist discrimination that "white Australia" employed against the native Australians. To further impress upon us the devastation government policies and social rejection created within Aboriginal communities, she wrote us an assignment focused around Sally Morgan's My Place.
She couldn't have chosen a better way to show us how the people we read about and the suffering written about in our textbooks was real and it actually happened with actual consequences.
Sally Morgan grew up completely separate from her natural culture and heritage and was left with a feeling of emptiness that she could never explain. As soon as she began to ask questions it became clear that her family was involved in a cover-up; a cover-up of the very thing that tore apart her family and the families of so many other Aborigines; a racist society with the intention of eliminating the culture of the land.
Though My Place isn't written with the highest sophistication or professional writing structure, the stories and the power of them is not lost in the least bit. Every Australian should read about how social and government pressure took a toll on an entire culture in order to accept responsibility and to most past this disgracefull period in Australian history as a whole, united nation. australian biographical non-fiction4 s Kate573 1 follower

This classic memoir by Australian writer Sally Morgan, first published in the 1980s, is beautiful, tender and creative all at once. Morgan tells the story of her childhood in which she knew nothing of her indigenous blood, and then tells how she came to terms with it as she embarked on a quest for her roots as an adult. In the second and third parts of the book as an adult, she tells the stories of her uncle, mother and grandmother in the first person as she explores her own relationships with them, This must have been such a difficult and emotional book to write and it remains beautiful and powerful almost 35 years after its publication. Once again, a wonderful book I would never have known about or picked up if not for a book club. This was a beautiful reading experience made all the better by the intelligent women I shared it with. This one will stick with me for awhile!contemporary indigenous memoir ...more4 s Talya95 8

I am so glad this book was picked for this month's book club. I knew nothing about the history of the way the Aborigines were treated in Australia. I found many comparisons to the way the Blacks and the Native Americans were treated in America. I would have preferred the book to have been separated into different books with her autobiography as one book and how she came to know of her roots and another book with her family members' biographies in another book. I am now curious to find out how the relations have changed.4 s Vishy707 261

I discovered Sally Morgan's memoir 'My Place' when I was searching for books written by indigenous Australian writers.

Sally Morgan starts her memoir by talking about her childhood. She describes how life was hard for her and her family, how her mother took care of her and her siblings with the help of her grandmother, how her father (who fought in the Second World War) was either in or out of hospitals and how when he was out of hospitals he spent most of his time at the bar getting drunk with his friends. One day Sally's classmates in school ask her where she is from, the dreaded question that all immigrants are asked. When she says she is from here, they change tack and ask her where her parents are from. When Sally comes home that evening, she asks her mother the same question. Her mother asks her to tell her classmates that they came from India. Sally is not very convinced but lets it be. Then later Sally's sister Jill tells her that they are indigenous Australians or Aborigines. Sally is surprised that this is the first time she is hearing about it and she decides to explore her roots. What happens after that and the secrets that tumble out of the Pandora box are told in the rest of the book.

'My Place' is a beautiful, insightful memoir. It is heartbreaking to read about all the challenges that indigenous Australians went through, the inhuman treatment they suffered at the hands of the government and the law, and how sometimes they couldn't keep their own children as they were taken away by the government. Sally Morgan's story is interspersed by first hand stories narrated by her grandmother's brother Arthur, her mother Glad and her grandmother Daisy. These stories were my favourite parts of the book. I loved Arthur's story very much. I also loved the early part of the book in which Sally Morgan talks about her childhood, especially the part in which she describes the pets they kept in her family and how everyone in her family loved animals.

I loved 'My Place'. This is the first book by an indigenous Australian author I've ever read, and I am glad I discovered it.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite passages from the book.

"It was halfway through the second term of my fourth year at school that I suddenly discovered a friend. Our teacher began reading stories about Winnie the Pooh every Wednesday. From then on, I was never sick on Wednesdays. In a way, discovering Pooh was my salvation. He made me feel more normal. I suppose I saw something of myself in him. Pooh lived in a world of his own and he believed in magic, the same as me. He wasn’t particularly good at anything, but everyone loved him, anyway. I was fascinated by the way he could make an adventure out of anything, even tracks in the snow. And while Pooh was obsessed with honey, I was obsessed with drawing. When I couldn’t find any paper or pencils, I would fish small pieces of charcoal from the fire, and tear strips off the paperbark tree in our yard and draw on that. I drew in the sand, on the footpath, the road, even on the walls when Mum wasn’t looking. One day, a neighbour gave me a batch of oil paints left over from a stint in prison. I felt a real artist. My drawings were very personal. I hated anyone watching me draw. I didn’t even people seeing my drawings when they were finished. I drew for myself, not anyone else. One day, Mum asked me why I always drew sad things. I hadn’t realised until then that my drawings were sad. I was shocked to see my feelings glaring up at me from the page. I became even more secretive about anything I drew after that."

Have you read Sally Morgan's 'My Place'? What do you think about it?3 s Nigel45 7

It's thirty years since this notedly seminal memoir was published and it had never properly taken my interest, with me a lazy pursuer of even desired reading at the best of times. I thought the title was boring. But recently in my peripheral consciousness a rave about it had come up, background radio, I don't remember the moment. Then one day I when was falling through the front window of my schizophrenic friend Jimmy Chi's house as I broke in so he could re-graffiti the walls his sisters had had painted over, I came face to face with it on his floor. "Can I borrow this?" I called.

Now I was curious. I opened the formerly sturdy paperback covers into a women's A Fortunate Life, kind of. Patiently I tolerated the long 130 pages before anything happens, and just as well because when you come to respect the work you realise they're vital, the first story in Rashomon. Minimal plot but there's something engaging in the gradually solidifying characters. Sally Morgan, the courageous, bighearted author, is learning as she goes, and so are we, it can be no other way. We're living anecdotal poverty-line life as a young Perth girl grows up in the 50s and 60s. From this distance it's easy to forget how desperate you would've had to be in those booming days to call yourself poor, the 60s wasn't the 30s, which, in its context, this reads . So that starts to pull you in. You have a helpless father traumatised by WW2 with no wherewithal for healing who (you discover towards story's end, sorry for the spoiler) has voices visit him at night telling him to axe-murder his family, with mum and kids having to deal. You'll also find out why they can't leave.

Then comes the twinkling star that pulls all us magi to the manger: the author's teenage self starts to suspect she might be aboriginal. Mum and Grandma always told her they were Indian, and still point-blank insist they are. But the question won't let go.

From that moment until now I've scarcely put the book down. It becomes a young-mother-detective story with a huge emotional and spiritual punch, because her quest is for life, and not just her own. I don't want to give anything more away except to say Read This Book.

On its publication (and its many immediate reprints as a rapid bestseller in Australia), not only did it overturn white culture's view of the first people of this country, it enlightened Indigenous people too: it held up a torch, it said here is the way, a brave truth now simply told, we can take the next forward step in restoring our own massacred pride and identity. It ultimately engendered the Rudd apology.

In 'My Place', Sally Morgan reminds us of the grace and dignity within the meekest of us all, and that the unsung are truly our forgotten heroes. As she plies these pages egolessly discovering herself, she teaches us a new way to love in the voice of all Indigenous Australia, and it's beautiful.3 s Roshan Singh77 31

My Place is an autobiography that spans three generations. It tells the story of a family which has shed its identity to survive in the society which is racist and unforgiving. The history of aboriginal people is painful and makes one question the very foundations of the modern society. A society that's built on the land that was stolen, a society that negates the role of the natives and stigmatises the natives to the point where they try everything in their power to leave their own identity and become part of the accepted and established white order. The book starts of as a plain narrative of Morgan's childhood and is hauntingly funny at times. Through Morgan, we come to know what the fate of a child of mixed race was in Australia. Although she doesn't face any racial problems, we're made well aware that it is only because the family portrays itself as Indian. Had the aboriginal identity been made visible, things might have been very different. The worst sufferers of the lot are the people of Nan's (Sally Morgan's grandmother) generation. Children born of mixed race were forcefully taken away by the government and put into schools which robbed them not only of their childhood, but also made them suffer immense physical and mental torcher. This generation is known in history as 'the lost generation'. A black woman had no right over her children born of a white father. The book talks about issues that are way too many and way too important to sum up in a review. What I can tell you is that the book will make you look at the race politics with a whole new angle. It'll make you laugh and it will also shake you to the core. 3 s George2,512

A well told, interesting, sad, moving, powerful autobiographical book about the author’s upbringing and the life stories of her mother, Gladys, her father, her grandmother, Daisy, and her grandmother’s brother, Arthur Corunna. The author, Sally Morgan grew up thinking she had an Indian background. In fact she has an Australian Aboriginal ancestry. Her mother’s father was white and her mother’s mother was aboriginal. Sally’s father was Scottish.

Each story provides interesting information of how aborigines and part aborigines were treated, covering the period from the early 1900s to the 1980s. It is a book about how poorly aborigines were regarded and treated by white people. What makes the book so powerful is the matter of fact, honest way each story is told. The Corunna’s are hard working people who support one another and overcome adversities.

A very worthwhile, interesting reading experience.

This book was first published in 1987.4 s Whydidiwastemytime1 review

This book makes me weep for the future of Australian Authors. I feel obliged to tell everyone that not only did the book cover make me cringe, but i had to go to counselling because the storyline was that terrible. For months i could not function without crying every moment at the meer thought of how badly written this 'autobiography' was. This book should be rated W for Waste of time. Never again will I read the s of Sally Morgan. I understand it would have taken strength to write an extensive book about your past, however, i also understand that your deatiling in how you hated school and were truant, and the many pets you owned, are IRRELEVANT. Never read this, I want the hours that it took me to read back.CARPE DIEM.3 s Jaipal299 3

This book starts out a bit slowly but it weaves it's magic and the next thing you know, you're engrossed in it, living the lives of the people in the book, sharing their joys, facing their hardships and feeling their sadness.

The narration is not linear but goes back and forth, in time and locations, telling the tale from the point of view of different characters, mainly between the 20s to the 80s, where we get to hear the story of several people across three generations within the same family.

I it from a historical point of view as well as the author making it personal and inviting us on the journey of her discovery of her heritage.3 s Dr Miriam6

One of my very favorite books of all time...its an old friend I keep revisiting. An honest and illuminating look at some of the issues growing up aboriginal in Australia both in the 1970's and now. While much has changed, much remains the same. Clearly and simply written Morgan's words form a rhythm of their own in the telling of her story...beautifully done and well worth the read.3 s Lia281 71

Amazing how coming back to a book at a different time can change your point of view.
Last time, about 5 years ago, I was ambivalent. Which is a terrible thing to say.
Whilst as a work of literature, this is good to very good.
As a cultural touchstone, this is a very important part of Australia’s identity.

australian available-cnl female-authors3 s Katey Flowers365 38

I'll be honest and say that I struggled with the first third or so of this book. Sally details her childhood in such a way that it sometimes felt slow and she does not always portray herself as the most able or empathetic child! Her family life is difficult, both because her father's trauma and alcoholism often results in abuse, and also because of the secrets her mother and grandmother hold.

But as Sally matures and her stubbornness becomes tenacity, selfishness becomes conviction, and she begins a quest to uncover the truth about her family, the book did a full 180 for me and I was glued to every page. Sally's determination to reclaim her own heritage and to free her mother and grandmother of the shame and fear that has silenced them for so long was an incredible journey to be privy to. What Sally achieved in this book is remarkable, moving, and so important.wild-book-box2 s Alana220 34

this book cleared my skin, watered my crops, delivered me a bountiful harvest, and forced me to reach nirvana on a precarious rental agreement 2 s Dede129 1 follower

Class requirement.

It was good and educational: learning about the lost generation of Aboriginal kiddos and how Sally used her family background and through oral story telling to help younger self find who she was. A coming of age on the importance of heritage and culture.

No rating. I didn't hate it, just not something I would read normally. Good for the history buffs and people who memoirs ig.2 s kayleigh25

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