Australian Lives

Life is long. When youre forty-eight, theres been a lot of stuff thats happened (laughs). Its got elements of comedy and there are elements of heartache and drama and thriller and its got so many things in it. -- Rhonda King, born 1965. I really like the idea that in maybe a hundred years someone could listen and hear about my life to learn about what living in 2012 or 2013 was like. Think thats really cool. -- Adam Farrow-Palmer, born 1988. This book illuminates Australian life across the 20th and into the 21st century: how Australian people have been shaped by the forces and expectations of contemporary history and how, in turn, they have made their lives and created Australian society. From oral history interviews with Australians born between 1920 and 1989, fifty narrators reflect on their diverse experiences as children and teenagers, in midlife and in old age, about faith, migration, work and play, aspiration and activism, memory and identity, pain and happiness. In the book you can read and in the e-version of the book listen to the comedy, heartache and drama of ordinary Australians extraordinary lives. As our interviewee Kim Bear (born 1959) explains, Stories are a great way to inform people about what it is to be human. Even if you say one thing that resonates theres that connection made.