AustLit

'Until the 1970s, Aboriginal people in Australia were virtually without a voice. Administrators, missionaries, scientists, novelists, spoke of them, and occasionally for them, with such authority as to make a native voice seem unnecessary, even impossible. It was as though Aborigines were incapable of articulating their hopes and their history. The last twenty five or so years, whatever their disappointments, have seen the creation of a public space within which Aboriginal people could speak to other Australians and to one another. The faces of several Aboriginal spokesperson; have become familiar to television viewers, and Aboriginal writers, painters, and playwrights have found a sizeable audience, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. But an older and less educated generation has also been able through the use of a tape recorder and an editor to collect their memories and tell their stories to the world at large. Sally Morgan's My Place (1987) tells how a young Aboriginal graduate of the 1970s, enabled her mother and grandmother to confront their lives and articulate their Aboriginality. . . ' (Introduction)