Living in Hope, by Frank Byrne

  Cultural warning: Indigenous readers please be aware that this post contains content about, and weblinks to video images of, a deceased person.

The Most Underrated Book Award (MUBA) is designed to unearth literary treasures that might otherwise have been overlooked – and the 2018 winner is certainly an example of that.  The MUBA award judges,  Sarah L’Estrange, Megan O’Brien and Toni Jordan said that Living in Hope, by Stolen Generations survivor Frank Byrne is an important story of survival and hope and that the award, coming just after the death of the author aged 80, offered some measure of comfort to his family. But Living in Hope is a very small book, published by a very small non-profit community publisher based in Mparntwe Alice Springs, and it’s a title that had not crossed my radar at all until the MUBA shone a light on it.  And yet it’s a book, like