Robert Dessaix
Robert Dessaix is a writer, broadcaster, essayist, and memoirist. His best-known books are the autobiography A Mother's Disgrace (1994), the novels Night Letters (1996) and Corfu (2001), and the travel memoirs Twilight of Love (2004) and Arabesques (2008). He taught Russian Language and Literature at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales from 1972–84. From 1985–1995, he presented Books and Writing, a weekly program on ABC Radio National. He has also presented a radio series on Australian public intellectuals and great travellers in history, as well as regular programs on language. He now lives in Hobart, Tasmania.
Reading Australia
Kerryn Goldsworthy has written on A Mother's Disgrace (1994) for ABR as part of the Reading Australia project. Click here to read her essay.
Further Reading and Links
Reading Australia teaching resources: A Mother's Disgrace (1994)
Robert Dessaix's website
'Robert Dessaix' AustLit entry
Delia Falconer reviews What Days Are For by Robert Dessaix, Australian Book Review, no. 367, December 2014
'Open Page with Robert Dessaix', Australian Book Review, no. 367, December 2014
'Pushing against the dark: Writing about the hidden self' by Robert Dessaix, Australian Book Review, no. 340, April 2012
Jane Goodall reviews As I Was Saying: A collection of musings by Robert Dessaix, Australian Book Review, no. 339, March 2012
'Searching for mother: The deep troubled legacy we bequeath', Sara Dowse reviews A Mother's Disgrace by Robert Dessaix, The Canberra Times, 8 March, 1994
'Discourse with Dessaix makes for dizziness: Peter Davis talks to Robert Dessaix about his book, A Mother's Disgrace, language and the fluidity of memory', Canberra Times, 16 July 1994
'Confessions of a double visionary' by Evelyn Juers, Southerly (1994), 54 (3), 180-184.
'Robert Dessaix's journey into French' by Ninette Boothroyd and Michelle Royer, Southerly (2003), 63 (1), 95-101
'As Robert was saying: in conversation with Robert Dessaix', by Gail Bell, The Monthly, March 2012
Interview with Robert Dessaix, Creativenonfiction.org, issue 46, Fall 2012
'Robert Dessaix on Life, Love and Humbug', interviewed by Caroline Baum, YouTube, published 18 December 2014 by Booktopia TV
'Robert Dessaix: What days are for', interviewed by Ramona Koval, YouTube, published 7 December 2014 by Wheeler Centre
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