Frank Byrne

Cultural warning: Indigenous readers please be aware that this post contains content about, and weblinks to video images of, a deceased person.

The Most Underrated Book Award (MUBA) is designed to unearth literary treasures that might otherwise have been overlooked – and the 2018 winner is certainly an example of that. The MUBA award judges, Sarah L’Estrange, Megan O’Brien and Toni Jordan said that Living in Hope, by Stolen Generations survivor Frank Byrne is an important story of survival and hope and that the award, coming just after the death of the author aged 80, offered some measure of comfort to his family. But Living in Hope is a very small book, published by a very small non-profit community publisher based in Mparntwe Alice Springs, and it’s a title that had not crossed my radar at all until the MUBA shone a light on it. And yet it’s a book, like Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia edited by Anita Heiss, which has revelatory power.
The book is co-authored by social workers and Bringing Them Home counsellors Frances Coughlan and Gerard Waterford who have played a similar facilitative role to the people behind the Makor Write Your Story program for Holocaust survivors at the Lamm Jewish Library of Australia. As you can hear at this site, Frank spoke Aboriginal English, and as well as facilitating the recording of his story, Coughlan and Waterford have rendered the text into Standard Australian English to make it ready for publication. But as I know from conversations with Lamm Library staff, facilitators perform much more than a technical or editing role. Telling a story of survival involves confronting painful memories, so supportive listeners are needed to provide comfort and encouragement, even when there is a steely determination to set the record straight.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/01/07/living-in-hope-by-frank-byrne/… (mehr)