PRE-ORDER TODAY My Living memories of David Unaipon by Kym Kropinyeri
PRE-ORDER TODAY and receive an early bird discount
ISBN: 9781764924603 158pp 25 x 20cm
ABOUT THE BOOK
Kym Kropinyeri is a respected Ngarrindjeri, Narrunga and Ngadjuri Elder who grew up on the Point McLeay Mission, now officially known as Raukkan, nestled on the shores of Mungkuli, Lake Alexandrina. At the time, his great-grandfather, David Unaipon, was living nearby in a house on the hill overlooking the Mission.
This is both Kym’s memoir and Indigenous Australian history. The information within represents the author’s recollections of his life, the events he lived through, the experiences he had, and the stories and knowledge passed onto him over time. But in telling his story, Kym was compelled to put the record straight about his famous ancestor, David Unaipon, who features on the Australian fifty dollar note, and was by all accounts a genius.
Kym Kropinyeri makes a persuasive case in support of David Unaipon’s role as an Australian ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ with his insightful application of Newton’s laws of motion, which brought great wealth to Australia through the wool industry. Yet his great-grandfather lived and died in poverty. Kym thus uncompromisingly denounces the pervasive racism that David Unaipon confronted every day of his life: a menace still lingering in contemporary Australia.
As a Ngarrindjeri elder, Kym Kropinyeri throws out a compelling challenge for Australian society to not simply reflect on both the past and the present, but to engage in the healing process of ‘truth-telling’ and acknowledgement, so that all people living on the most ancient of continents with the oldest living culture may move forward together into a future based on genuine reconciliation, embraced by equality and justice.
