'I am sometimes identified as one of the "success stories" of the policies of removal of Aboriginal children. But for much of my childhood I was deeply unhappy. I feel I had been deprived of love and the ability to love in return. Like Lily, my mother, I felt totally powerless. And I think this is where the seeds of my commitment to human rights and social justice were sown.' Lowitja O'Donoghue
Lowitja O'Donoghue is a truly great Australian. A former Australian of the Year, she is arguably our nation's most recognised Indigenous woman. The inaugural chair of ATSIC, she has also represented Australia's Indigenous people at UN forums in Geneva and New York. Had Australia voted to become a republic in 1999, she was a likely candidate to become the country's first president.
In 2001 a bitter controversy arose over whether Lowitja had been 'stolen' as a child. There has never been any doubt that she had been handed over to missionaries at the United Aborigines Mission in Oodnadatta and was thereafter completely cut off from her mother and her culture, but the circumstances of her arrival at the mission were not precisely known. Stuart Rintoul, who was then a journalist at The Australian, accompanied Lowitja back to Central Australia to search for answers. This compellingly written, long-awaited authorised biography completes the journey into Lowitja's life and the challenging history of her times.
