Tell It to the World: an indigenous memoir

by Stan Grant

As an Aboriginal Australian, Stan Grant has had to contend with his country’s racist legacy all his life. Born into adversity, he found an escape route through education and the writing of James Baldwin, going on to become one of Australia’s leading journalists.

As a correspondent for CNN, he travelled the world, covering conflicts everywhere, from Baghdad to North Korea. Struck by how the human spirit can endure in the face of repression, he found the experiences of individuals he met spoke to him of the undying call of family and homeland. In the stories of other dispossessed peoples, he saw that of his own.

In Tell it the World, Grant responds to the ongoing racism that he sees around him. He writes with passion and striking candor of the anger, shame, and hardship of being an indigenous man. In frank, mesmerizing prose, Grant argues that the effects of colonialism and oppression are everyday realities that still shape our world.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Autobiography, Australia, Biography, Biography Memoir

255 pages, Paperback

Published August 27, 2019

About the author

Stan Grant is a journalist and the Charles Sturt University Vice- Chancellor’s Chair of Australian/Indigenous Belonging.

Reviews

[Scribe Publications]

A profound memoir by a writer of Aboriginal ancestry meditating upon “white” Australia.
Joyce Carol Oates

Stan Grant is an extraordinary man. He will be Australia’s first aboriginal prime minister.
Peter Carey

Searingly honest, this is a compelling and harrowing book in which Stan Grant adds his strong voice to the clamor for social justice and indigenous rights.
New Internationalist>/b>

Grant is a natural storyteller…at his best when recounting his experiences and observations of Indigenous Australian life with devastating simplicity and acuity. This highly readable book…has the potential to spark empathy and generate important discussion, and deserves to be read widely.
Bookseller+Publisher

Grant will be an important voice in shaping this nation.
The Saturday Paper

It is a story so essential and salutary to this place that it should be given out free at the ballot box.
Sydney Morning Herald

An urgent and flowing narrative in a book that should be on the required reading list in every school.
The Australian

[Tammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A CNN correspondent shares the story of how he grew up in Australia and how even though he is now successful, growing up an Aboriginal Australian effected him. Grant shares his personal experiences with racism as a child through his adulthood. He found a route to self-worth through reading the writings of James Baldwin. He compares Australia's treatment of the Aborigines to America's treatment of Native Americans and blacks.

I was unaware of this part of Australia's history. I knew that there were several Aboriginal tribes already living in Australia when Great Britain first sent settlers and then prisoners to live there. However, I did not know how the Aboriginals had been treated from the very beginning and how they are viewed as other, still today.

He shares how the ongoing racism in Australia and the world continues to cause hardship, anger, and shame for him as an indigenous man. He argues that the effects of early colonialism and oppression are now everyday realties that have shaped countries and governments and we all have to realize this to change it.

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartrending and very personal glimpse into racist Australia. Growing up with racism all around him, the author doesn't judge or feel bitter, he purely reports the minds of people, how that makes them act towards others. It's clearly shows how much harm is caused by the casual racism and unconscious bias that people have.

I wish everyone would read this, it really would open people's eyes. Highly recommended.

[Dave Merry · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. A gripping read. Grant is able to convey with clarity just how difficult it was growing up as an indigenous Australian and what it now means to be black and living in racist white Australia.
It's a captivating book.

[Catherine Cronin · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an Aboriginal Australian, Stan Grant brings a perspective that is missing from much Australian literature. The injustices foisted upon his people are many and infuriating and it seems that racism is still a manifest presence in Australian society.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grant shares how racism feels in a deeply personal way...illuminating and disturbing.

[Andréa]

Note: I received an ARC of this book at ALA Midwinter 2020.

[The Atlantic]

"Grant, an Australian journalist, argues that progress lies in dialectic: One point of view clashes against another, giving rise to a third way that combines elements of both rather than defaulting to either one." — Bo Seo

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc...

[Tin Minute · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with Stan's open and honest way of story telling, romanticizing a simpler time while laying the tragedies of it bare. Written in essay form, Stan recounts memories from his youth in 1960's/1970's Australia as an Aboriginal boy facing full-frontal racism. His words don't call forth hate or reckoning, but instead a love for a country who has only in recent decades started counting his people as human beings and not in with the flora and fauna. Gut wrenching at times, while comical at others, Tell It To The World is part scathing review, part love letter to country that made him and so many others who they are today.
*** This review is based on an arc copy received for free ***

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Some lovely imagery and writing, but I wish there were more structure here. Still, compelling and important stories. Fascinating to learn about some of the parallels between Australia and the U.S. in terms of racism and politics.