My Dark Brother. The Story of the Illins, A Russian-Aboriginal Family

“After fleeing Russia and roaming the world seeking a new home, the Illin family settled in Australia in 1910. Five years later, in the face of official opposition, Leandro married a Ngadjon Aboriginal woman, Kitty Clarke. Following her death in 1925, he raised their six children by himself in outback Queensland, struggling to eke out a living in the bush and to bring them up according to his ideals.” “Despite the hardships and his constant battles with racist attitudes and official rules, Leandro brought up his Russian-Aboriginal family to take pride in its own identity and respect justice and equality. In the process he became one of the first white champions of Aboriginal rights.”.

“This is the story of Leandro and his family, from the birth of his father Nicholas – the passionate but impractical Dostoevskian intellectual – through to the present generation of Aboriginal leaders. Part biography, part history and part detective story, My Dark Brother is a book about an extraordinary family.”–