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Cassandra Pybus
Cassandra Pybus is an independent scholar and prizewinning author of twelve books of nonfiction, published in Australia, USA, Canada, and Britain. Her most recent book is Truganini: Journey through the apocalypse (Allen and Unwin).
When most of literary publishing is in the doldrums, literary biographies are seen to be the one bright line in the publisher’s balance sheet. Such is the enthusiasm for biographies that a bevy of scribblers are at this moment casting about for a writer who hasn’t already been ‘done’. I find something unsettling about this voyeuristic fascination where the life of a writer has come to ... (read more)
I remember a conversation a year or so ago with an Australian scholar who had recently returned after a stint in Europe and was astonished to hear colleagues refer to Henry Reynolds as a ‘populariser’ and not true historian. I’ve heard it myself. Now that Reynolds has become a full-time writer we can expect to hear it more often. All of which goes a long way toward explaining why academic hi ... (read more)
Were it not for the timing, it would be easy to speculate that this richly evocative collection of pieces about music was the inspiration for Jane Campion’s glorious film, The Piano. So many elements of the film – the dominant image of the beached piano, the powerful undertow of sexual passion, even the unexpected violence-are present in this book in the most uncanny similitude. I should not b ... (read more)
Perusing the Australia Day honours list, I was disappointed to see that Judith Wright had not been honoured with a major award. She is one of our greatest living poets, a pioneer environmentalist, and a tireless champion of Aboriginal rights. In this year, when the nation is still coming to terms with the momentous implications of the Mabo decision, it is worth remembering that Wright has been a k ... (read more)
Greg Dening was trained for the Catholic priesthood. He became an outstanding historian of the Pacific, although perhaps better described as an anthropologist-historian, in company with Clifford Geertz, Marshall Sahlins, Nathalie Zemon Davis, and his colleague Rhys Isaac, to whom this book is warmly dedicated. Yet echoes of his initial calling linger in his work, certainly as evidenced in this col ... (read more)
‘In the struggle between the public’s inviolable right to be diverted and the individual’s wish to be left alone, the public almost always prevails.’
Janet Malcolm, The Silent Woman
‘… these feminist bitches (you won’t mind me using that word because that’s what they are), these feminist bitches who told lies to destroy a man’s career …’
John Laws on The First Stone
... (read more)
In the wake of the spectacular collapse of Rothwells and unsavoury revelations about Western Australian entrepreneurial enterprise, it is very apposite for Penguin to have republished Nick Hasluck’s 1980 novel, The Blue Guitar. This novel, as relevant now as nine years ago, deals with the world of entrepreneurship with its illusory money, fast talk, and duplicity. It is a world of the corrupt an ... (read more)