Peter Read

Tripping over Feathers: Scenes in the Life of Joy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams: a Narrative of the Stolen Generations Peter Read

Joy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams was a member of the Aboriginal Stolen Generations. She was taken from her mother at birth and put into a home for white girls. As an effected adult, she spent ten years in court suing the Australia's State Government for negligence. Not only did Joy lose the case, but lost two separate appeals. Several years later she was found dead, alone, in her Primbee flat in New South Wales. In this book, Peter Read - an award-winning author and prominent historian of Aboriginal history - tells Joy Williams's story, which exemplifies the detrimental effects of Aboriginal children removed from their mothers at birth. Joy suffered abuse, anger, violence, and mental illness. The book is a new style of biography, written in direct speech and dramatized, often using Joy's own words, with a reverse chronology from death to birth. Tripping over Feathers offers rare historical insight into the institutions, street life, and Indigenous and urban culture from 1942 to 2006. Also included are many of Joy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams's poems.