City of Belmont - Ruth Faulkner Public Library

A tear in the soul, Amanda Webster

A tear in the soul

Amanda Webster

AUTOBIOGRAPHY: GENERAL. AUSTRALIAN. A foreigner's criticism provides the impetus for Amanda Webster to embark on a long-intended search for two former school friends - Aboriginal kids from the Kurrawang Mission near where she grew up in Kalgoorlie. As a child, Webster supposed Mission kids were well-cared for orphans, however growing awareness forced her to think otherwise. Over the years her questions accumulated: were her friends members of the Stolen Generations? What was life at Kurrawang really like? What are her responsibilities as a non-Indigenous Australian whose family's privilege was built on stolen land? For an institution that existed for over two decades, Webster finds that Kurrawang was strangely undocumented. Nor can she find any trace of her former friends, including a young Aboriginal girl who went on a beach holiday with Amanda's family