A Secret Country

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

This study takes the reader beyond the euphemistic and romantic popular misconceptions of Australia to reveal the often invisible past and the present subterfuge of the country. The author recognizes that since its very beginning the history of white Australia has been shrouded in secrecy and silence. He remarks that it is a country with perhaps more cenotaphs per head of population than any other and not one stands for those aborigines who fought and died for their land. After the bicentennial "Celebration of a Nation" the racial and political tragedy of the aboriginal people, from whom Australia was taken violently 200 years ago, continues. It portrays a country of stark contrasts, of visionaries and criminals whose secrets are exposed. The author has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of Journalist of the Year, for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia. He has won the International Reporter of the Year Award and the United Nations Association Media Peace Prize.

Reviews

Reminiscent of a sabre-toothed, unexpurgated Dickens -- Robert Carver * New Statesman *
A moving account of the abuse of human rights in Australia, all the more valuable because it is written by an Australian writer -- Graham Greene
Pilger is a first-rate dissident journalist... Presents a harsh narrative of class, race and power; of the oppression and resistance, the betrayal and amnesia, that lie behind the sunny illustions of the Australian self-image -- Robert Hughes
This is a patriotic book in the best sense, written in the belief that Australia deserves not old bromides and stereotypes, but the respect of critical appraisal... A necessary book for those of us who believe in the redeeming power of truth * Daily Telegraph *
Pilger's Australia is so different from the image conveyed abroad by films and TV soap operas, so different indeed from the way many Australians see themselves, as to be another country...but none of it alters one starkly apparent fact - he still loves the place. * Sunday Express *

Author Bio

John Pilger grew up in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, author and film-maker. He has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of Journalist of the Year, for his work all over the world, notably in Cambodia and Vietnam. He has been International Reporter of the Year and winner of the United Nations Associated Peace Prize and Gold Medal. For his broadcasting, he has won France's Reporter Sans Frontieres, an American television Academy Award, an Emmy, and the Richard Dimbleby Award, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 2003, he received the Sophie Prize for 'thirty years of exposing deception and improving human rights'.