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1985 In Australian Literature
This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1985. Events * Christopher Koch won the 1985 Miles Franklin Award for '' The Doubleman'' Major publications Novels * Thea Astley — ''Beachmasters'' * Peter Carey — ''Illywhacker'' * Sumner Locke Elliott — ''About Tilly Beamis'' * David Foster — ''Dog Rock'' * Kate Grenville — '' Lilian's Story'' * Barbara Hanrahan — ''Annie Magdalene'' * Thomas Keneally — '' A Family Madness'' * Christopher Koch — '' The Doubleman'' Short story collections * David Malouf — '' Antipodes'' * Olga Masters — ''A Long Time Dying'' Crime and mystery * Peter Corris — ''Make Me Rich'' Children's and young adult fiction * Pamela Allen — ''A Lion in the Night'' * Duncan Ball — ''Selby's Secret'' * Thurley Fowler – ''The Green Wind'' * Robin Klein — '' Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left'' * Gillian Rubinstein — '' Space Demons'' Poetry * Robert G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Koch
Christopher John Koch AO (16 July 1932 – 23 September 2013) was an Australian novelist, known for his 1978 novel '' The Year of Living Dangerously'', which was adapted into an award-winning film. He twice won the Miles Franklin Award (for ''The Doubleman'' in 1985, and for '' Highways to a War'' in 1996). In 1995, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from his alma mater, the University of Tasmania, in 1990. Early life and education Koch was born in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1932. He was educated at Clemes College, St Virgil's College, Hobart High School and at the University of Tasmania.Koch, Christopher ''AustLit''. After graduating with a |
Peter Corris
Peter Robert Corris (8 May 1942 – 30 August 2018) was an Australian academic, historian, journalist and a novelist of historical and crime fiction. As crime fiction writer, he was described as "the Godfather of contemporary Australian crime-writing", particularly for his Cliff Hardy novels. Biography Corris' secondary school education was at Melbourne High School. He was a Bachelor level student at the University of Melbourne, then gained a Master of Arts in history at Monash University. He studied at the Australian National University where he was awarded a PhD in history on the topic of the South Seas Islander slave trade (Kanakas). He continued these studies as a university lecturer, but later became a journalist, and then a full-time writer. He was married to writer Jean Bedford. Peter Corris wrote a book that provided deep insights into his life living with type-1 diabetes. Some of his novels have diabetic subplots. In January 2017, Corris announced that he would no l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
No Sugar
''No Sugar'' is a postcolonial play written by Indigenous Australian playwright Jack Davis, set during the Great Depression, in Northam, Western Australia, Moore River Native Settlement and Perth. The play focuses on the Millimurras, an Australian Aboriginal family, and their attempts at subsistence. The play explores the marginalisation of Aboriginal Australians in the 1920s and 1930s in Australia under the jurisdiction of a white government. The pivotal themes in the play include racism, white empowerment and superiority, Aboriginal disempowerment, the materialistic values held by the white Australians, Aboriginal dependency on their colonisers, and the value of family held by Aboriginal people. The play was first performed by the Playhouse Company in association with the Australian Theatre Trust, for the Festival of Perth on 18 February 1985. It also was chosen as a contribution to Expo 86 in Canada ''No Sugar'' forms the first part of a trilogy, the First Born Trilogy, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Davis (playwright)
Jack Leonard Davis (11 March 1917 – 17 March 2000) was an Australian 20th-century Aboriginal playwright, poet and Aboriginal Australian activist. Academic Adam Shoemaker, who has covered much of Jack Davis‘ work and Aboriginal literature, has claimed he was one of “Australia’s most influential Aboriginal authors”. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, where he spent most of his life and later died. He identified with the Western Australian Noongar people, and he included some of this language into his plays. His work incorporates themes of Aboriginality and identity. While known for his literary work, Davis did not focus on writing until his fifties. His writing centred around the Aboriginal experience in relation to the settlement of white Australians. His collection of poems ''The First Born'' was his first work to be published and also made him the second Aboriginal to have published poetry by 1970, after Kath Walker, also known by her Aboriginal name Oodge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Wallace-Crabbe
Christopher Keith Wallace-Crabbe (born 6 May 1934) is an Australian poet and emeritus professor in the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne. Life and career Wallace-Crabbe was born in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. His father was Kenneth Eyre Inverell Wallace-Crabbe, painter, printmaker, journalist and publisher, pilot in the RAF and ending World War II as Group Captain, and his mother Phyllis Vera May Cox Passmore was a pianist, and his brother Robin Wallace-Crabbe became an artist. He was educated at Scotch College, Yale University and the University of Melbourne, where for much of his life he has worked and is now a professor emeritus in the Australian Centre. He was Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University and at the University of Venice, Ca'Foscari. He is also an essayist, a critic of the visual arts and a notable public reader of his verse. He was the founding director of the Australian Centre and, more recently, chair of the peak arti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Gray (poet)
Robert William Geoffrey Gray (born 23 February 1945) is an Australian poet, freelance writer, and critic. He has been described as "an Imagist without a rival in the English-speaking world" and "one of the contemporary masters of poetry in English". Biography Gray was born in Port Macquarie, grew up in Coffs Harbour and was educated in a country town on the north coast of New South Wales. He trained there as a journalist, and since then has worked in Sydney after settling in the 1970s as an editor, advertising copywriter, reviewer and buyer for bookshops. His first book of poems, ''Creekwater Journal'', was published in 1973. As a poet Gray is most notable for his keen visual imagery and intensely observed landscapes, known as a very skilful imagist. Les Murray has said about Gray, " ehas an eye, and the verbal felicity which must accompany such an eye. He can use an epithet and image to perfection and catch a whole world of sensory understanding in a word or a phrase." His w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Demons
Space Demons is a young adult novel written by Gillian Rubinstein, first published in 1986. It details the story of five children playing a video game which both affects and is affected by their real lives. It is the first of a trilogy, followed by ''Skymaze'' (1989) and ''Shinkei'' (1996). It was adapted as a play by Richard Tullough in 1990. The novel is suggested reading for schools in New South Wales, Australia. Plot Andrew Hayford's father presents Andrew with a new Japanese videogame called ''Space Demons''. Andrew introduces his best friend Ben Challis to the game. While playing together, Andrew sees Ben disappear for a moment. When he comes back, Ben tells Andrew that he feels like he went into the game. After Ben goes home, Andrew also finds himself pulled into the world of the game. When they meet up after school a couple weeks later, Andrew reveals that a gun from the game came back into reality with him. Andrew and Ben have a big fight over the game and Ben's newfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gillian Rubinstein
Gillian Rubinstein (born 29 August 1942) is an English-born children's author and playwright. Born in Potten End, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, Rubinstein split her childhood between England and Nigeria, moving to Australia in 1973. As well as eight plays, numerous short stories and articles, she has written over 30 books. Her award-winning and hugely popular 1986 debut '' Space Demons'' introduced the themes of growing up and fantasy worlds which emerge often in her other writings. Books such as ''At Ardilla'', ''Foxspell'' and ''Galax-Arena'' all received critical acclaim and multiple awards. In 2001, Rubinstein published ''Across the Nightingale Floor'', the first of the best-selling three-book series ''Tales of the Otori'' series under the pseudonym Lian Hearn. The series is set in a fictional island nation resembling feudal Japan and is her first work to reach an adult audience. The name 'Lian', comes from a childhood nickname and 'Hearn' apparently refers to he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halfway Across The Galaxy And Turn Left
''Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left'' is a 1985 novel by Australian children's author Robin Klein which also became a children's television series. The story focuses on an alien family who seek refuge on Earth, in the small town of Bellwood. Klein also wrote a sequel novel called ''Turn Right for Zyrgon''. Plot summary The novel tells the tale of the planet Zyrgon, ruled by the galactic police called The Law-Enforcers. They are after Mortimer, who has cheated the government lottery for the 27th time in a row. His family is governed by the youngest daughter, 12-year-old X, who wants to save her father from the detention centre. The family also includes Mother, who would rather design clothing and leave all worries to her daughter X. The oldest sister Dovis is a cosmic flier who writes poetry and levitates. The youngest is a boy genius, Qwrk who is a professor at age 8. X is the lead character: a stressed girl who has to balance between strange Earth customs such as sch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Klein
Robin McMaugh Klein (born 28 February 1936) is an Australian author of books for children. She was born in Kempsey, New South Wales, Australia, and now resides near Melbourne. Early life Robin Klein is one of nine children. She had her first short story published at the age of 16. She worked in number of jobs before becoming an established writer, including tea lady at a warehouse, bookshop assistant, nurse, copper enamelist, and program aide at a school for disadvantaged children. In 1981, she was awarded a Literature Board grant for writing, and since then, she has had more than 20 books published. She is the poet of the poem "Amanda!". Robin Klein was educated at Newcastle Girls' High School. Career Several of her books have been short-listed for the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Children's Book of the Year Award, including '' Hating Alison Ashley'' (also a film starring Delta Goodrem) and ''Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left'' (filmed as a television ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thurley Fowler
Thurley Fowler (21 March 1925 – 7 May 2024) was an Australian writer for children. Biography Fowler was born in Griffith, New South Wales on 21 March 1925. She grew up in the Murrumbidgee irrigation area, before moving to Melbourne where she raised her family. Fowler died in Frankston, Victoria Frankston is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne city centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Frankston Local government areas of Victoria, local governme ... on 7 May 2024, at the age of 99. Bibliography * ''Wait For Me! Wait For Me!'' (1981) * ''Fall of a Clown'' (1982) * ''The Green Wind'' (1985) * ''Am I Going With You?'' (1985) * ''A Hippo Doing Backstrkes'' (1988) * ''The Kid from Licorice Hill'' (1988) * ''There's a Bushranger in My Bedroom'' (1990) * ''The Wind is Silver'' (1991) * ''The Light from Nowhere'' (1993) * ''Journey to a Dream'' (1993) * ''Not Again, Dad!'' (1994) * ''The C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selby's Secret
''Selby's Secret'' is the first children's novel in the Selby series by Australian writer Duncan Ball, and was first published in 1985. It was reissued in 2004. Plot summary Selby is the only talking dog in Australia – perhaps in the world. He longs to chat with his owners but fears loses his status as their beloved pet. Keeping his secret is not easy. Awards and nominations Years after publication, the book won its first award, the 1987 Primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Works * ... section in the Waybra Award. It also came fourth place in the 1987 Primary section of thKoala Awards The book was also shortlisted many other awards including the 199Yabba Awardsfor young readers. It has been shortlisted for the Koala Awards for 1988-1991 as well as 1996, 1999, and 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |