Australian writer Gail Jones’s postmodern novel Sorry (2007) can be read as a serious if modest intervention in Australia’s recent debates about the white treatment of indigenous populations. Without resorting to an appropriated Aboriginal testimonial voice for a full presentation of indigenous tribulations, the novel (1) taps into Aboriginal pains through the occasional and sidelong glimpses afforded readers while a white female narrator is relating a story about her own family tragedy; (2) hints at the horrendous mistreatment of Aborigines by white people through the story of the narrator’s own struggle between imperial and colonial knowledge; and (3) treats Aboriginal suffering through a deliberate form of poetic “shadow-speaking” in which pain is vicariously felt from a distance. For these reasons, Sorry would not impress readers as a direct censure of white colonial atrocities. Instead of claiming authority as a grand national narrative, the novel is designed as a postmodern petit récit that tackles a big issue in a small way. If it engages with the theme of national reconciliation, it communicates the message through a form of personal dissent against Australia’s conservative political establishment’s refusal to apologize. Through a voice of humility, Sorry champions a kind of communication ethics that requires listening to and caring for the other.