Yami Lester (–2017)

Yami's birth father was white, but he grew up with his mother's people, Australian Aboriginals who built a life around the work they found on the remote Australian cattle stations of central Australia. Yami's people were in the desert when atomic testing released enough radioactive material to kill some of his relatives and damage his own eyesight (which he eventually lost altogether). His memoirs are a fascinating recounting of the day-to-day life of an Aboriginal youth as he learned his trade as a horseman and cattle drover in the great Australian outback. The last half of the book deals with his becoming a rather famous social activist after losing his sight, being sent to a school for the blind and learning to speak English and read Braille. (February 2007)… (meer)