They’re all here, in Inconvenient Women described by its author as a ‘joint biography’ of the often-radical women writers of Australia, between 1900 and 1970.
The women writers of that era ranged from Mary Gilmore, Katharine Susannah Prichard and Miles Franklin to the late comers in the 1960s such as Thea Astley. Kent has researched not only the women writers resisting the social and political wrongs of Australian society, but also the major elements of 20th-century history, in Australia and overseas.
The first book banned in Australia was written by Jean Devanny, a Marxist proselytiser and New Zealander who moved her family to Australia in 1929. She wrote The Butcher Shop which featured a woman having an illicit affair.
Many of the writers profiled had left wing views and were members of the new Communist Party. Many Australian writers, fascinated by the new Soviet way of life, visited Russia, including Pamela Travers (later writing Mary Poppins). Her resultant book was based on letters she had sent back to England.
If they highlighted Indigenous life, like Prichard in Coonardoo, or the Sydney slums, like Ruth Park in The Harp in the South, they were castigated. While Mary Gilmore supported the White Australia policy, she also wrote articles protesting against the treatment of racial minorities.
One fascinating man profiled, among all the women, is Guido Baracchi, a rich Marxist and a charming ally of many women writers, most of whom fell in love with him. There’s probably a whole book waiting to be written about this man.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jacqueline Kent was born in Sydney and grew up there and in Adelaide.
After completing an arts degree she returned to Sydney and worked as a journalist, radio producer and scriptwriter for the ABC; in the 1970s she changed direction and became a book editor. She has written books of social history, general non-fiction and biography. A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, A Literary Life won the National Biography Award and the Nita B. Kibble Award, and she is the biographer of musician and activist Hephzibah Menuhin, and of Julia Gillard.
She holds a Doctorate of Creative Arts from the University of Technology, Sydney. Beyond Words: A Year with Kenneth Cook was her first memoir.
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