Too afraid to cry : memoir of a stolen childhood
(Book)

"In this transcendent memoir, Windham-Campbell Prize-winning poet Ali Cobby Eckermann's gorgeous narrative unfolds against the verdant South Australian landscape, the pastoral setting belying the painful realities of a young girl estranged from her community. Told at first through the frank eyes of a child whose life is irretrievably changed after being forcibly taken from her family and later adopted by a German Lutheran family, 'Too afraid to cry' braids piercingly lyrical verse with spare prose to tell a searingly personal story of abuse and trauma. Though she was loved by her adopted parents, Eckermann nevertheless experienced years of confusion about growing up as one of the few dark-skinned 'outsiders' in a mostly white, Protestant community -- enduring racism, cruel teen bullying, and the unwanted advances of a lascivious 'Uncle.' As the memoir progresses from melancholy childhood to troubled adolescence, Eckermann's reveals how she, at only eighteen years old, tragically succumbed to the pressure of giving up her own infant son for adoption, unwittingly perpetuating a cycle of fragmentation that had come to dominate Indigenous communities. It is an act that casts a shadow for decades, further deepening what Eckermann terms 'the hole in my guts' -- an absence alleviated only through years of drug and alcohol abuse until, finally, she courageously sets out to find her birth family and gain acceptance within the Aboriginal culture. Moved by the overwhelming sense of connection she had never before experienced, Eckermann discovers poetry and writing as a source of healing, recovering her own voice. 'Too afraid to cry' is a timeless story of family and cultural healing that transcends generational boundaries. It is so essential that it becomes a quest to reclaim the Aboriginal values of collectivity that have long been suppressed. Revealing the devastating effects of racist policies that tore apart Indigenous Australian communities and created the Stolen Generation of 'adoptees,' Eckermann's brave account offers a mirror to North America's own dark history of coerced adoption of Native American children and the violence inflicted on our continent's indigenous peoples." -- jacket flap.