Description Hide Description- Show Description+
WINNER OF THE 2022 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
WINNER OF THE 2022 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD FOR INDIGENOUS WRITING
The story of an Aboriginal woman who worked as a police officer and fought for justice both within and beyond the Australian police force.
A proud Gunai/Kurnai woman, Veronica Gorrie grew up dauntless, full of cheek and a fierce sense of justice. After watching her friends and family suffer under a deeply compromised law-enforcement system, Gorrie signed up for training to become one of a rare few Aboriginal police officers in Australia. In her ten years in the force, she witnessed appalling institutional racism and sexism, and fought past those things to provide courageous and compassionate service to civilians in need, many Aboriginal themselves.
With a great gift for storytelling and a wicked sense of humour, Gorrie frankly and movingly explores the impact of racism on her family and her life, the impact of intergenerational trauma resulting from cultural dispossession, and the inevitable difficulties of making her way in the white- and male-dominated workplace of the police force.
Black and Blue is a memoir of remarkable fortitude and resilience, told with wit, wisdom, and great heart.
Author: Veronica Gorrie
Paperback Published 30 March 2021 256 pages
"Gorrie’s distinctly Indigenous storytelling makes us feel like we are sitting with her by the fire in the backyard listening to the resounding immediacy of her words. Her warmth and love and care for her readers is felt throughout the book … [Black and Blue] is especially crucial at this moment in time. It challenges us to think about power and society, and the possibility of changing the world we live in.’ -2022 VICTORIAN PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS JUDGES’ COMMENTS
‘Every now and then, a story comes along that astonishes with its degree of truth, trauma and resilience. Veronica Gorrie’s memoir, Black and Blue, is one such, chronicling a life of inconceivable pain, abuse and discrimination … Her book should be mandatory reading material for all emerging and current cops … Women who have historically been silenced: now more than ever, we need to be reading their stories.’- JESSIE TU, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
‘Black and Blue is the extraordinary kind of memoir that has you laughing and then, in the next paragraph, feeling like all the wind has been taken out of you with shock. Veronica Gorrie tells her story of growing up as a Gunai/Kurnai woman in Australia, and then going on to be a police officer in Brisbane where she witnessed and was the target of personal and structural racism. Her voice is so clear and sharp it feels at times like she is talking directly to you and she has a unique gift of threading a story with small details and sideways routes that add to the odd charm of the book. It is a story of great resilience but also of great love, in her family and also in her community.’- BRIDIE JABOUR, THE GUARDIAN, 25 BEST AUSTRALIAN BOOKS OF 2021