First Nations poet, writer and visual artist from South Australia Ali Cobby Eckermann has been named the winner of the 2017 Windham- Campbell Prize for Poetry.
Out of work and living in a caravan, Ms Eckermann has said the US Literary prize worth more than $200 000 will have an impact on her and a family torn apart by the Stolen Generations.
She has performed her poetry around the world and is praised for her body of work. Cobby Eckerman published Ruby Moonlight in 2012 and Inside My Mother in 2015 -which was described as an emotional timeline of the stolen generation-
Her family has suffered from removal and separation for decades with her grandmother having take her children of the desert after the Maralinga bombs resulting in her mum being removed. She was also removed from her own mother and has her son taken away from her .
When the email arrived telling her she had won, Cobby Eckermann, who moved to Adelaide six months ago, thought it was a prank.
Cobby intends on buying a house so her family can all be together she stated “Its like the Stolen Generation is finished for my family, we can finally stay together”
