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image of person or book cover 8944534736633624675.jpg
Cover image courtesy of the publisher.
y separately published work icon My Place single work   autobiography  
Issue Details: First known date: 1987... 1987 My Place
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In 1982, Sally Morgan travelled back to her grandmother's birthplace. What started as a tentative search for information about her family, turned into an overwhelming emotional and spiritual pilgrimage. My Place is a moving account of a search for truth into which a whole family is gradually drawn, finally freeing the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.' Source: Publisher's blurb.

Exhibitions

6939401
8707337

Teaching Resources

Teaching Resources

This work has teaching resources.

Notes

  • Selected for the 2003 Books Alive promotion.
  • Dedication: To My Family.
  • Epigraph: How deprived we would have been / if we had been willing / to let things stay as they were. / We would have survived, / but not as a whole people. / We would never have known / our place.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Fremantle, Fremantle area, South West Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: Fremantle Press , 1987 .
      image of person or book cover 8944534736633624675.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of the publisher.
      Extent: 358p.
      Reprinted: 1987 August, September and October 1987 , 1988 Mass paperback edition published 1988
      Note/s:
      • Cover illustration on first edition: painting by Sally Morgan, depicting her grandmother's journey. Includes portrait of the author.
      ISBN: 0949206245, 094206318
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Virago ,
      1988 .
      image of person or book cover 6745339591135995802.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 358p.
      ISBN: 0860681483 (pbk)
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Seaver Books ,
      1988 .
      image of person or book cover 8908422185553302464.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Alternative title: My Place : An Aborigine's Stubborn Quest for Her Truth, Heritage, and Origins
      Extent: 360p.
      Edition info: 1st American ed.
    • Fremantle, Fremantle area, South West Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: Fremantle Press , 1989 .
      Extent: 358p.
      Edition info: Illustrated edition.
      ISBN: 0949206571
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Arcade ,
      1990 .
      Extent: 360p.
      ISBN: 1559700548
    • Boston, Massachusetts,
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Little, Brown ,
      1990 .
      image of person or book cover 8604410553583556422.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Alternative title: My Place : The Australian 'Roots'
      Extent: 360p.
      ISBN: 0316582891
    • Fremantle, Fremantle area, South West Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: Fremantle Press , 1999 .
      Extent: 440p.
      ISBN: 0949206318, 1863682783 (hbk.)
    • Fremantle, Fremantle area, South West Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: Fremantle Press , 2003 .
      Extent: 1 v.p.
      Edition info: Special ed.
      ISBN: 1920731377
    • Fremantle, Fremantle area, South West Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: Fremantle Press , 2008 .
      image of person or book cover 5217043814588479569.jpg
      Image Courtesy of Publisher's Website.
      Extent: 496ppp.
      Note/s:
      • 21st Anniversary Edition
      ISBN: 9781921361227
    • Fremantle, Fremantle area, South West Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: Fremantle Press , 1990 .
      Extent: 3vp.
      Note/s:
      • Adaptation for younger readers in three volume Sally's Story , Arthur Corunna's Story and Mother and Daughter. Volumes individually indexed.
      • Edited by Barbara Ker Wilson.
      ISBN: 0949206792, 0949206776, 0949206784

Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Sound recording.
  • Large print.

Works about this Work

y separately published work icon Reckoning with the Past : Family Historiographies in Postcolonial Australian Literature Ashley Barnwell , Joseph Cummins , Abingdon : Routledge , 2018 17218286 2018 single work criticism

'This is the first book to examine how Australian fiction writers draw on family histories to reckon with the nation's colonial past. Located at the intersection of literature, history, and sociology, it explores the relationships between family storytelling, memory, and postcolonial identity. With attention to the political potential of family histories, Reckoning with the Past argues that authors' often autobiographical works enable us to uncover, confront, and revise national mythologies. An important contribution to the emerging global conversation about multidirectional memory and the need to attend to the effects of colonisation, this book will appeal to an interdisciplinary field of scholarly readers. '

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Remediating Australia’s Cultural Memory : Aboriginal Memoir as Social Activism Helen A. Fordham , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Continuum : Journal of Media & Cultural Studies , vol. 32 no. 1 2018; (p. 42-51)

'During the 1980s Aboriginal Australians experienced setbacks in their quest for the restoration of their land rights. Neoliberal politics reframed such demands as special interests seeking to gain a material advantage at the expense of the general community and as a threat to the economic security of the nation. As a consequence, politicians failed to pass legislation that would formalize the national land rights system that would guarantee Aboriginal economic self-sufficiency. This paper argues that it was in this context that Aboriginal memoir emerged to prompt social action by recounting experiences of discrimination and exploitation erased by official history and by challenging the imposed racist stereotypes used to marginalize Aboriginal claims. These memoirs prompted sympathy and understanding among a broad readership, which enabled the formation of a political solidarity over the recognition of Aboriginal land rights. These memoirs also expressed a commonality of Aboriginal experience that served to unite an increasingly frayed Aboriginal activist movement eroded by neoliberal policies.' (Publication abstract)

Seeing Aboriginal History in Black and White : The Contested History of the Stolen Generation Arielle De Bono , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: NEW : Emerging Scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies , vol. 2-3 no. 1 2016-2017;

'The forced removal of Indigenous children has been a site of historical debate in Australia since the 1980s. This paper explores these debates and discusses the political nature of Australia’s national history, and the correlation between child removal and the legitimacy of the nation.' (Publication abstract)

Sally Morgan’s My Place : From the National to the Transnational Rosanne Kennedy , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian and New Zealand Literature 2016; (p. 210-222)

'Published in 1987, the year before the bicentenary of Australian settlement, Sally Morgan's autobiographical bildungsroman, My Place, has achieved a rare success —it has become an iconic Australian text that circulates widely overseas. It has also been subject to pungent controversy in Australia, from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous critics. Its initial success stemmed in part from the timeliness of its publication. While plans were under way to commemorate two hundred years since the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Harbour, under the theme of "one land, one people," Morgan challenged a celebratory version of Australian history with her personal narrative of the exclusion of Aborigines from national belonging. Her book narrates her search to confirm her Aboriginal heritage, which she comes to discover only in her late teens, and to find out why her mother and grandmother have denied it. Published during the lead-up to the history wars, a period of intense debate about the nation's treatment of Indigenous peoples during and since British colonization, My Place enabled many white readers to engage with its battler suburban version of Aboriginality and of Australia's colonial past. (Introduction)
 

Towards Resilience and Playfulness : The Negotiation of Indigenous Australian Identities in Twentieth-century Aboriginal Narratives Jan Alber , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: European Journal of English Studies , vol. 20 no. 3 2016; (p. 292-309)

'This article looks at the ideological ramifications of the narrative strategies that twentieth-century Aboriginal prose texts use to negotiate indigenous Australian identities. The central thesis is that after a period during which narratives by Aboriginal authors by necessity followed the form of the life histories to detail the actual experiences of oppression under the British settlers and past Australian governments, more recent indigenous Australian narratives are expressive of a regained confidence in playfully asserting Aboriginal identities. One can observe three developments in indigenous Australian narratives of the late twentieth century. First, the mode of fiction gradually increases its prevalence. Second, there has been a movement away from reports of what the colonisers did to indigenous Australians towards the foregrounding of more rebellious Aboriginal characters. Third, one can detect a significant increase in playfulness in narratives by indigenous Australian authors.' (Publication abstract)

[Review] My Place Jo Goodman , 1991 single work review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , May vol. 6 no. 2 1991; (p. 31)

— Review of My Place Sally Morgan , 1987 single work autobiography
Indigenous Voices Promoted at Fremantle Press 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 7 May no. 425 2008; (p. 47)

— Review of My Place Sally Morgan , 1987 single work autobiography ; Heartsick for Country : Stories of Love, Spirit and Creation 2008 anthology life story ; Bawoo Stories May L. O'Brien , 2008 selected work picture book
[Review] My Place Lesley White , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 22 no. 2 2008; (p. 45)

— Review of My Place Sally Morgan , 1987 single work autobiography
[Review] My Place Rita Blackburn , 2000 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 14 no. 1 2000; (p. 38)

— Review of My Place Sally Morgan , 1987 single work autobiography
On the Threshold of a Renaissance - Recent Aboriginal Writing in Australia Emmanuel S. Nelson , 1990 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , Winter vol. 4 no. 2 1990; (p. 131-133)

— Review of Story About Feeling Bill Neidjie , 1989 selected work poetry ; Wanamurraganya : The Story of Jack McPhee Sally Morgan , 1989 single work biography ; My Place Sally Morgan , 1987 single work autobiography ; Writing from the Fringe : A Study of Modern Aboriginal Literature Mudrooroo , 1990 single work criticism
'Worth in the Telling' : Tales of Trauma in Australian Aboriginal Narratives Clare Bradford , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Canadian Children's Literature , Winter vol. 27 no. 4 (104) 2001; (p. 8-25)
y separately published work icon Aboriginal Experience Lloyd Cameron , Glebe : Pascal Press , 1994 Z1019180 1994 single work criticism
form y separately published work icon Aboriginal Experience Martin Didsbury , 1994 Z1019197 1994 single work film/TV

'The stories told by Ruby Langford Ginibi in Don't Take Your Love to Town, Sally Morgan My Place, and Mudrooroo in Wild Cat Falling provide the starting point for discussions on some of the key events and issues that have affected Aboriginal people.

Part 1: 'Aboriginal Experience' looks at the practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families, and denial of Aboriginality and equal rights. Part 2: 'Reclaiming Identity' looks at the importance of the family and the land to Aboriginal people and their quest to reclaim their identity.'

y separately published work icon Recovery and Restoration : Changing Identities of Aboriginal Women in Australia Gail Maria Hennessy , 1999 Z1019315 1999 single work thesis The thesis critically examines four autobiographical writers. These four writers, Margaret Tucker, Glenyse Ward, Sally Morgan and Ruby Langford Ginibi illustrate different ways of constructing an Aboriginal identity in their published texts.
Catch to $5 Cheapie For Bookbuyers Rosemary Sorensen , 2003 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 22 March 2003; (p. 7)
Last amended 14 Nov 2019 09:02:14
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