WARNING
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this website may contain images, voices and videos of deceased persons. Users are warned that there may be words and descriptions that may be culturally sensitive and which might not normally be used in certain public or community contexts.
Stolen tells of five young Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their parents, brought up in a repressive children’s home and trained for domestic service and other menial jobs. Segregated from society from their earliest years, not all of them successfully manage their lives when released into the outside world.
The pain, poignancy and sheer desperation of their lives is seen through the children’s own eyes as they struggle to make sense of a world where they have been told to forget their families, their homes and their language. This tender and moving story, awash with childlike humour, brings the tragic history of the Stolen Generations to the Australian stage.
Jane Harrison is descended from the Muruwari people and is an award-winning playwright and author. Her play Stolen played across Australia and internationally for seven years. Rainbow’s End has had numerous productions and won the 2012 Drover Award. The Visitors premiered at Sydney Festival in 2020. Her novel Becoming Kirrali Lewis won the 2014 Black & Write! Prize, and was shortlisted for the Prime Minster’s Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. Jane directed the Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival in 2016 and 2019.
thestellaprize.com.au
Becoming Kirrali Lewis by Teachers are advised that exploration of the experience of the Stolen Generations may produce strong emotional responses in both students and members of their wider community. Care should be taken in considering this text and the important issues it explores, particularly where such exploration includes students from an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage.
