Felicity Bloch

‘One day I will have to tell (my daughter) … that her grandmother is a bag lady.’ Josiane Behmoiras’s exquisitely crafted memoir of her mother, Dora, delivers its punchline in the opening chapter. Behmoiras’s childhood and youth were shadowed by her mother’s untreated mental illness and by their descent into chronic penury, loneliness and fear. Nonetheless, the overall effect of this w ... (read more)

In 1993, when Victoria Haskins undertook research into the relationship between Aboriginal and white women, she was ‘plunged into the argument that white academics were only perpetuating colonialism by writing Aboriginal people’s history … that white Australians should not, could not, try to speak for Aboriginal people, nor try to represent the Aboriginal experience’. Left floundering by ... (read more)

Zeitgeist or coincidence? Spinifex and Macmillan have both just published novels with middle-aged women centre stage. In marketing terms, they have launched a niche product, targeting the middle-aged female consumer. Poppy’s Return, by New Zealand author Pat Rosier, and West Australian Liz Byrski’s Gang of Four boldly foreground women’s midlife issues. Their protagonists bravely confront the ... (read more)