Daughter of the River Country

O'Brien, Dianne

£18.99

Raised in the era of the ‘White Australia’ policy and widespread racism, Dianne grows up believing her adoptive mother, Val, is her birth mother. Val promises Dianne that when she turns fifteen, she will ‘tell her a story’. But just months before Dianne’s fifteenth birthday, Val dies. Abandoned by her stepfather, Dianne is raped, sentenced to a girls’ home and later forced to marry her rapist. She gives birth to a baby girl – the first of seven children – and goes on to endure years of horrific domestic violence at the hands of different partners, drug and alcohol addiction, and cruel betrayal by those closest to her. But miraculously her fighting spirit is not extinguished. At the age of twenty-nine, Dianne learns she is Aboriginal and that her grandfather was William Cooper, a famous Aboriginal activist and community leader. She chooses to forgive the past and becomes a leader in her own right.

Out of stock

Publish Date: 05/08/2021

Description

A heartbreaking, redemptive memoir of raw power, Daughter of the River Country is the story of an extraordinary journey from a childhood as one of Australia’s Stolen Generation to Aboriginal ElderBorn in rural Australia in the 1940s, baby Dianne is immediately taken from her parents and placed with a white family. Raised in an era of widespread racism, she grows up believing her Irish adoptive mother is her birth mother.When her adoptive mother tragically dies and she is abandoned by her adoptive father, Dianne is raped, sent to the brutal Parramatta Girls Home and forced to marry her rapist in order to keep her baby. After suffering years of domestic abuse, but refusing to let her spirit be broken, Dianne finally discovers she is a Yorta Yorta woman, a daughter of the river country, and is reunited with her birth mother. She learns that her great-grandfather was a famous Aboriginal activist and from here she becomes a powerful leader in her own right, vowing to help others in any way she can.Daughter of the River Country explores for the first time the devastation caused to Australia’s Aboriginal Stolen Generation, who were forcibly placed with white families as part of a government assimilation programme. ‘A compelling memoir about the power of love and staying the course.’ LINDA BURNEY, the first Aboriginal Member of Australia’s House of Representatives

Additional information

Weight 496 g
Dimensions 240 × 162 × 28 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

400

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

305.4889915092 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K