TY  - BOOK
AU  - Smith,Aaron
TI  - The rock: looking into Australia's 'heart of darkness' from the edge of its wild frontier 
SN  - 9781925760651
U1  - 994.07 23
PY  - 2020///
CY  - Yarraville, Vic
PB  - Transit Lounge
KW  - Smith, Aaron,
KW  - National characteristics, Australian
KW  - Racism
KW  - Australia
KW  - Newspaper editors
KW  - Anecdotes
KW  - Torres Strait Islanders
KW  - Social conditions
KW  - 20th century
KW  - Aboriginal Australians
KW  - fast
KW  - Country life
KW  - Cultural pluralism
KW  - Journalists
KW  - Politics and government
KW  - Community life
KW  - Biography
KW  - Race relations
KW  - Thursday Island (Qld.)
KW  - Discovery and exploration
KW  - History
KW  - Australian
KW  - Indigenous collection
KW  - Biographies
N1  - Bibliography: pages 363-368
N2  - Journalist Aaron Smith's new memoir holds up a unique mirror to Australia. What he sees is at once amazing, disturbing and revealing. The Rock explores the failings of our nation's character, its unresolved past and its uncertain future from the vantage point of its most northerly outpost, Thursday Island. Smith was the last editor, fearless journalist and the paperboy of Australia's most northerly newspaper, the Torres News, a small independent regional tabloid that, until it folded in late 2019, was the voice of a predominantly Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal readership for 63 years across some of the most remote and little understood communities in Australia. The Rock is a story of self-discovery where Smith grapples to understand a national identity marred by its racist underbelly, where he is transplanted from his white-boy privileged suburban life to being a racial and cultural minority, and an outsider. Peppered with his experiences, Smith gradually and sensitively becomes embedded in island life while vividly capturing the endless and often farcical parade of personalities and politicians including Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott. Smith pulls no punches while he reflects on the history of Terra Australis incognita, dissecting what is truly Australia, and its gaping cultural and moral divide
ER  -