Remembered By Heart: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing

by Sally Morgan (Editor)

‘You can’t change the past, but you can live a different future.’ Bronwyn Bancroft

‘These stories are powerful: sharing pain, humour, grief, hope and pride. Pride in family, community and survival. Pride in being Aboriginal.’ Sally Morgan

From life in the desert to growing up on a mission, enduring devastating policies in the 1930s to bravely seizing new opportunities in the 1960s, these are fifteen true stories reflecting a diverse range of Aboriginal Australian experiences.



Indigenous Writing, Young Adult, Fiction for Middle Readers

Genres: Indigenous, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Sally Morgan is recognised as one of Australia's best known Aboriginal artists and writers. She is one of a number of successful urban Aboriginal artists.

Sally was born in Perth in 1951, the eldest of five children. As a child she found school difficult because of questions from other students about her appearance and family background. She understood from her mother that she and her family were from India. However, when Sally was fifteen she learnt that she and her sister were in fact of Aboriginal descent, from the Palku people of the Pilbara.

This experience of her hidden origins, and subsequent quest for identity, was the stimulus for her first book My Place published in 1987. It tells the story of her self discovery through reconnection with her Aboriginal culture and community. The book was an immediate success and has since sold over half a million copies in Australia. It has also been published in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Her second book Wanamurraganya was published in 1989. It is the biography of her grandfather, Jack McPhee. She has also written five books for children.

As well as writing, Sally Morgan has established an international reputation as an artist. She has works in numerous private and public collections in Australia and the United States, including the Australian National Gallery and the Dobell Foundation collection. Her work is particularly popular in the United States. Her work as an artist is excellently described and illustrated in the book Art of Sally Morgan.

She has received many awards, including from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. As a part of the celebration in 1993 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, her print Outback was selected by international art historians as one of 30 paintings and sculptures for reproduction on a stamp representing an article of the Declaration.

My Place remains her most influential work, not only because of its very wide popularity but also because it provided a new model for other writers, particularly those of indigenous background.

She is currently Director of the Centre for Indigenous History and Arts at The University of Western Australia.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Vicki Antipodean Bookclub · Rating 4 out of 5]

“They did not see the hole they were tearing. They did not see they were taking someone’s daughter, someone’s grand-daughter, someone’s sister, and someone’s future mother. They studied my grandmother, but they did not see her and they did not see the chain of events they were setting place.”
Stephen Kinnane, whose grandmother was removed from Miriwoong country in the Kimberley under the ‘Aborigines Act’ of 1905
.
.
.
Sometimes I can’t believe what we humans do to each other in the name of what - power, wealth, politics……certainly nothing that you can take with you when you leave this earth. This book of 172 pages gathers together lived experiences of Aboriginal Australians from the 1930’s-1960’s to acknowledge the past and represent hope that the future can be different. Heartbreaking and yet uplifting with its powerful message of survival and pride.

[Morgan Moroney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remembered by heart was a different kind of book to what I would usually read but it was great.
Filled with personal stories and memories of indigenous individuals/families during the stolen generations.

[Merb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short anthology compiled with Indigenous Australian writings, covering the 1930s to 1960s. This is educational for non Indigenous peoples, especially Australians, to learn about the atrocities caused in this country from a more personal source than what we learn in school. For Indigenous people, I am sure this is a read that brings pride and shared understanding. It is important to know what happened to Aboriginal people in Australia, and how this treatment has manifested into Indigenous generations today. Listening to and acknowledging Indigenous voices is a responsibility and honor we should all abide. Highly recommended reading.

[Kt · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Remembered by Heart is an anthology of Indigenous writing that shares “pain, humour, grief, hope and pride. Pride in family, community and survival. Pride in being Aboriginal.” It is edited by prolific Aboriginal writer and artist, Sally Morgan and features contributions from:
🖤 Stephen Kinnane
💛 Alice Nannup
❤️ Hazel Brown
🖤 Alice Bilari Smith
💛 May O’Brien
❤️ Julian Mona Chuguna
🖤 Joan Winch
💛 Lola Young
❤️ David Simmons
🖤 Eric Hedley Hayward
💛 Rene Powell
❤️ Sally Morgan
🖤 Tjalaminu Mia
💛 Kim Scott
❤️ Bronwyn Bancroft

Aimed at teenagers, it’s classified as young adult book, however; there is absolutely nothing on or in the book to indicate this. This was very frustrating because the writing of some contributors, whom I had read before; seemed almost simplified and I didn’t understand why. This is especially given that memoirs like this need to be told and should leave the reader feeling uncomfortable, yet educated. It was only when I went onto Goodreads and saw that it was a Young Adult book that everything suddenly made sense.

Although the marketing of the book leaves a lot to be desired, the memoirs that it contains are anything but. They are powerful, confronting and eyeopening. They all take the reader back to Western Australia between the 1930s and 1960s and expose what life was like for Aboriginal people at this time.

Detailing life as part of the stolen generation; on missions, both by choice or capture; and the constant avoidance of the Native Welfare Officers for those ‘lucky enough’ to be able to live at home and go to school, these biographical abridged accounts from longer memoirs detail lives of heartache, sorrow, confusion; but also of hope, pride and the comfort and love that only connection to family and country can bring. I also really liked that each of the fifteen contributors has a small biography at the end of the book so that you can learn more about them.

At one hundred and seventy pages, Remembered by Heart is a short but recommended read for teenagers. It will provide an excellent starting point for education, awareness and discussion, as all good non-fiction books should. I don’t regret reading it; I just wish I had have known it was a YA book prior, as this did detract from the must read memoirs for me.

To play along with my book bingo and to see what else I’m reading, go to #ktbookbingo and @kt_elder on Instagram.

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can remember reading 'Lousy Little Sixpence' many years ago (but can find no record of it, except for the ground-breaking documentary film of the same name in the early 1980s).
'Lousy Little Sixpence' gave testimonies of survivors of the Stolen Generations who were born in the early 1900s, and it was shocking, confronting and memorable.
'Remembered by Heart' has the same resonance and compelling accounts, but interwoven with the devastation and tragedy, there is incredible resilience, hope and lives lived with wisdom and tenacity. These authors tell of old lore and law, survival and skills - such as 'In Those Days' by Alice Bilari Smith - and the amazing ingenuity in living off the land, or living by one's wits.
Each chapter is an account of their childhoods and lives from a different author, some male, some female. Not all were stolen from their families, but all were exposed to the crippling legacy of the White Australia Policy. Renee Powell in Mission Days' makes it plain and clear: "No words can describe the feeling of being grabbed from a mother and planted amongst strangers."

[Jane Rutherford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read Harder Challenge 2019 - Task 8 - An #ownvoices book set in Oceania.

Got a real sense of #ownvoices in the 15 stories told by Aboriginal Australians born from early- to mid-20th century. Their stories of how they were taken from their families at early ages, trained to be in menial jobs, and punished for defying the missionaries who were raising them to forget/give up their heritage were heart-breaking ... yet inspiring. The stories range from very to not-so-much literate.

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

TW: racism, abuse, kidnapping, bullying, cultural genocide

A stunning collection of essays on the cultural genocide of indigonous people's of Australia, from colonisation to kidnapping and placements into mission homes and schools.

This is an anthology of essays collected from standalone publications, like a sampler, but each one is powerful and hit deep and true. I can say that I genuinely want to find and read the source text for all of these.

[Oliver Hodson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although focused on Aboriginal Australians living in parts of Western Australia, I feel that this book gives a great snapshot of experiences of Aboriginal people in the last century and how their lives have been shaped by their families and culture, and by assimilation policies like the missions and ideas leading to the Stolen Generation.

If we get to Truth-Telling in Australia it won’t be because a power of work, like this book, hasn’t already been done!

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of stories. The snippets in this book paint a colourful story of many First Nations & descendants experiences growing up in white Australia. The stories in this book will now lead me to read the entire books they derive from. 5 stars!

[Jaq · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid collection of real lived experiences of the stolen generations. A great tool for use in the upper primary setting to begin the talk about what occurred in Australia to so many families....

[Naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great stories. So much sadness and sorrow as well.

[Hope]

When I borrowed this, I didn't realize it was a middle grade reader, not the kind of anthology I was looking for. No shade, just not for me.

[Pip]

Astronomy OWL 2020

[Trentpeeler]

to-read

[Bec 🤎☁️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adored this insightful and powerful collection of stories of the Aboriginal Australian experience during the lost generations.

[Ally McCudden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learnt a lot from this one. There is so much that we aren’t taught in school about our own history. This was eye opening in that sense.