Thea Astley's brilliant career
Date
2007
Authors
Sheridan, Susan, 1944-
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Recording, oral
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Professor Sue Sheridan ; presented by the Friends of the University of Adelaide Libraries, 12 July 2007, the University of Adelaide
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Abstract
Thea Astley was one of the outstanding Australian fiction writers of the 20th century. Four of her novels, including her last, Drylands (1999), won the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award, and she was awarded numerous literary and civic honours during her lifetime. The widest and longest-lasting appeal of her work is the mordant irony of her gaze on Australian society, her sharp yet compassionate portrayal of social outsiders. She could be wildly, anarchically funny, or wildly, savagely serious. Do these qualities account for the fact that she was the only woman novelist of her generation to have published consistently and successfully throughout the 1960s and 70s, when the literary world was heavily male dominated?
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Description
Talk recorded at the University of Adelaide, Ira Raymond Exhibition Room, Barr Smith Library, Thursday 12 July 2007, at a free public talk hosted by the Friends