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Ann Curthoys

Ann Curthoys

Ann Curthoys is a historian who writes about Australian history, especially Indigenous history, and historical writing. Her books include Freedom Ride: A Freedom Rider Remembers (2002); with John Docker, Is History Fiction? (2005, 2010); with Jessie Mitchell, Taking Liberty: Indigenous Rights and Settler Self-Government in Colonial Australia, 1830-1890 (2018); and, with Shino Konishi and Alexandra Ludewig, The Lives and Legacies of a Carceral Island: a biographical history of Wadjemup/Rottnest Island (2022).

Ann Curthoys reviews 'O’Leary of the Underworld: The untold story of the Forrest River Massacre' by Kate Auty

May 2023, no. 453 24 April 2023
This is no ordinary history book. It is in part an account of a massacre and in part a biographical study of one of the perpetrators, Patrick Bernard O’Leary, yet it reads more like a novel, or a prosecutor’s statement in court, than like a conventional history. It is a truly angry book, full of rage at the fact that the perpetrators of a massacre were never brought to justice, rage at the jus ... (read more)