Thea Astley (25 August 1925–17 August 2004) was an Australian novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, Girl with a Monkey, was published in 1958. She was a prolific and multi-award-winning writer who published fifteen novels and two short story collections and won the Miles Franklin award four times (for The Well Dressed Explorer in 1962, for The Slow Natives in 1965, for The Acolyte in 1972, and then for her last novel, Drylands, in 2000). Other awards she received include: The Patrick White Award in 1989, The Age Book of the Year Award for A Kindness Cup in 1975, the 1980 James Cook Foundation of Australian Literature Studies Award for Hunting the Wild Pineapple, the 1986 ALS Gold Medal for Beachmasters, the 1988 Steele Rudd Award for It's Raining in Mango, the 1990 NSW Premier's Prize for Reaching Tin River, and the 1996 Age Book of the Year Award and the FAW Australian Unity Award for The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow.

Reading Australia

Susan Sheridan has written about It’s Raining in Mango (1987) as part of the Reading Australia initiative. Click here to read her essay.

Further reading and links

Reading Australia teaching resource: It's Raining in Mango (1987)

Susan Wyndham’s ‘Literary World Mourns Thea Astley’ published in the Sydney Morning Herald, 18 August 2004.

Valerie Miner’s review of It’s Raining in Mango ‘Four Generations Down Under’ published in the LA Times, 22 November 1987.