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'This is a true story about lots of little secrets and one big one. It's the spare and painful tale of the author's family and the hidden strands she found underweaving its history - a story embedded in the ancestry of many white Australians. What was it that Lynette's grandmother could not tell her? Why did she cover her face in pale make-up? Who was her own mother, Emily, the "Polynesian princess"? And what happened when Emily "was taken away from us for some time"? In "A Little Bird Told Me", Lynette Russell finds out the answers to these questions, unearthing secrets kept by her family for generations. In doing this, she learns who she really is - and comes to know the importance of belonging. The memoir aims to take readers beyond the legacy of madness and the tenacity of identity, to reveal the defenses and denials we all sometimes need to survive.' (Source: Amazon website)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also electronic resource.
Works about this Work
-
y
Witnessing Australian Stories : History, Testimony and Memory in Contemporary Culture
Melbourne
:
2010
6037495
2010
single work
thesis
'This book is about how Australians have responded to stories about suffering and injustice in Australia, presented in a range of public media, including literature, history, films, and television. Those who have responded are both ordinary and prominent Australians–politicians, writers, and scholars. All have sought to come to terms with Australia's history by responding empathetically to stories of its marginalized citizens.
'Drawing upon international scholarship on collective memory, public history, testimony, and witnessing, this book represents a cultural history of contemporary Australia. It examines the forms of witnessing that dominated Australian public culture at the turn of the millennium. Since the late 1980s, witnessing has developed in Australia in response to the increasingly audible voices of indigenous peoples, migrants, and more recently, asylum seekers. As these voices became public, they posed a challenge not only to scholars and politicians, but also, most importantly, to ordinary citizens.
'When former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered his historic apology to Australia's indigenous peoples in February 2008, he performed an act of collective witnessing that affirmed the testimony and experiences of Aboriginal Australians. The phenomenon of witnessing became crucial, not only to the recognition and reparation of past injustices, but to efforts to create a more cosmopolitan Australia in the present. This is a vital addition to Transactions critically acclaimed Memory and Narrative series.' (Publisher's blurb)
-
Kin-fused Reconciliation : Bringing Them Home, Bringing Us Home
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , August no. 42 2007; 'Fiona Probyn-Rapsey discusses the biopolitical management of Indigenous people within the contemporary nation through an analysis of white liberal discourse on Reconciliation. She looks specifically at the image of the nation as family and the pedagogic nationalist argument for extending the "white" family to include Aboriginal kin and to "bind Aboriginality to whiteness". She analyses how a wide range of Indigenous life narratives (including those by Morgan, Russell, Pilkington-Garimara, Lalor, Scott and Brown, Kinnane, Simon and Randall) describe familial relations between white and Indigenous family members. She argues, in her formulation of the phrase "kin-fused Reconciliation", that a liberal "extended family" model of the Nation is potentially assimilationist' (Anne Brewster and Fiona Probyn-Rapsey, Introduction). -
'Whiteness' and 'Aboriginality' in Canada and Australia
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Feminist Theory , August vol. 8 no. 2 2007; (p. 187-208) 'We ... begin our conversation with each other and with you by examining our personal relationship to the idea of whiteness in order to reveal some of its complexity in Canada and Australia. 'Whiteness' as an abstraction has proved useful in moving the invisible norm to visibility, but we show who an awareness of 'whiteness' in two locations can be recuperated to re-privilege the already privileged. Aboriginal speakers and writers that theorized 'whiteness', in many cases from outside the academy, in the process 'hybridizing' traditional genres. For many of them, Aboriginality, like whiteness, is a construct that often stands in the way of thinking clearly about where to go next in the fight against racism' (187). -
Indigenous Life Stories
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 1 no. 2 2004; (p. 209-218) -
One Man's History Is Another Woman's Lie
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , October no. 30 2003;
— Review of Finding Ullagundahi Island 2001 single work novel ; A Little Bird Told Me : Family Secrets, Necessary Lies 2002 single work biography
-
[Review] A Little Bird Told Me : Family Secrets, Necessary Lies
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: JAS Review of Books , October no. 19 2003;
— Review of A Little Bird Told Me : Family Secrets, Necessary Lies 2002 single work biography -
One Man's History Is Another Woman's Lie
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , October no. 30 2003;
— Review of Finding Ullagundahi Island 2001 single work novel ; A Little Bird Told Me : Family Secrets, Necessary Lies 2002 single work biography -
The Darker Side of Our Inglorious Heritage
2002
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 20 April 2002; (p. 19)
— Review of A Little Bird Told Me : Family Secrets, Necessary Lies 2002 single work biography -
Hybrid Space
2002
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 242 2002; (p. 56-57)
— Review of A Little Bird Told Me : Family Secrets, Necessary Lies 2002 single work biography -
In Short
2002
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 16-17 March 2002; (p. 15)
— Review of A Little Bird Told Me : Family Secrets, Necessary Lies 2002 single work biography -
Indigenous Life Stories
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 1 no. 2 2004; (p. 209-218) -
'Whiteness' and 'Aboriginality' in Canada and Australia
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Feminist Theory , August vol. 8 no. 2 2007; (p. 187-208) 'We ... begin our conversation with each other and with you by examining our personal relationship to the idea of whiteness in order to reveal some of its complexity in Canada and Australia. 'Whiteness' as an abstraction has proved useful in moving the invisible norm to visibility, but we show who an awareness of 'whiteness' in two locations can be recuperated to re-privilege the already privileged. Aboriginal speakers and writers that theorized 'whiteness', in many cases from outside the academy, in the process 'hybridizing' traditional genres. For many of them, Aboriginality, like whiteness, is a construct that often stands in the way of thinking clearly about where to go next in the fight against racism' (187). -
Kin-fused Reconciliation : Bringing Them Home, Bringing Us Home
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , August no. 42 2007; 'Fiona Probyn-Rapsey discusses the biopolitical management of Indigenous people within the contemporary nation through an analysis of white liberal discourse on Reconciliation. She looks specifically at the image of the nation as family and the pedagogic nationalist argument for extending the "white" family to include Aboriginal kin and to "bind Aboriginality to whiteness". She analyses how a wide range of Indigenous life narratives (including those by Morgan, Russell, Pilkington-Garimara, Lalor, Scott and Brown, Kinnane, Simon and Randall) describe familial relations between white and Indigenous family members. She argues, in her formulation of the phrase "kin-fused Reconciliation", that a liberal "extended family" model of the Nation is potentially assimilationist' (Anne Brewster and Fiona Probyn-Rapsey, Introduction). -
y
Witnessing Australian Stories : History, Testimony and Memory in Contemporary Culture
Melbourne
:
2010
6037495
2010
single work
thesis
'This book is about how Australians have responded to stories about suffering and injustice in Australia, presented in a range of public media, including literature, history, films, and television. Those who have responded are both ordinary and prominent Australians–politicians, writers, and scholars. All have sought to come to terms with Australia's history by responding empathetically to stories of its marginalized citizens.
'Drawing upon international scholarship on collective memory, public history, testimony, and witnessing, this book represents a cultural history of contemporary Australia. It examines the forms of witnessing that dominated Australian public culture at the turn of the millennium. Since the late 1980s, witnessing has developed in Australia in response to the increasingly audible voices of indigenous peoples, migrants, and more recently, asylum seekers. As these voices became public, they posed a challenge not only to scholars and politicians, but also, most importantly, to ordinary citizens.
'When former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered his historic apology to Australia's indigenous peoples in February 2008, he performed an act of collective witnessing that affirmed the testimony and experiences of Aboriginal Australians. The phenomenon of witnessing became crucial, not only to the recognition and reparation of past injustices, but to efforts to create a more cosmopolitan Australia in the present. This is a vital addition to Transactions critically acclaimed Memory and Narrative series.' (Publisher's blurb)
