Talking to My Country

An extraordinarily powerful and personal meditation on race, culture, and identity.When Stan Grant was born in Australia in 1963, the national census classed him and his family among the country's flora and fauna. As Aboriginal Australians, their history and culture had been suppressed for centuries. A legacy of racism stood between him and the opportunities that white Australia - the so-called Lucky County - seemed awash with.But Grant was lucky enough to find an escape routethrough education. Finding early inspiration inthewriting of James Baldwin andfellow indigenous activists at the Australian National University, on completing his studies he went on tobecome one of the country's leading journalists.As a correspondent for CNN he travelled extensively, covering conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Struck by how common humanity can live on in the face of repression and mass destruction - from North Korea toPakistan to Baghdad - the lives of individuals he met spoke to him ofsacrifice, endurance, andthe undying call of family and homeland. And in the stories of otherdispossessedpeoples, he saw that of his own.InTalking To MyCountry,Grant draws on his own life and communityto respond to the ongoing racism that he seesaround him. He writes with passion and striking candour ofthe sorrow, shame, anger,and hardship of being an indigenous man. Forthright and unblinking,Stan reaches beyond his own heritage to show how the effects of colonialism and racism are everydayrealities that stillshape our world, and how we should never grow complacent in the fight to overcome them.