Advances

The nexus between ABR and La Trobe University has always been strong, and our summer issue is a good example of this, with a long essay on George Orwell’s  enduring influence by Robert Manne, Professor of Politics at La Trobe University (pictured in the next column with Professor Michael Osborne, Vice-Chancellor (centre), and Peter Rose, Editor of ABR). Two years ago, La Trobe University became ABR’s chief sponsor, an arrangement that has had immense intellectual and other benefits for the magazine. The partnership grows stronger all the time, and we were delighted when the university renewed its sponsorship last month. Full de-tails of the 2004 La Trobe University/Australian Book Review Annual Lecture, and other collaborative events, will follow in due course.

The ABR Forums move to Sydney early next month, when Peter Porter and Peter Robb will be in conversation with Ros Pesman of the University of Sydney about all things Italian – literature, music, visual arts, politics and travel. Peter Porter has written about Italy for decades; Peter Robb is the author of Midnight in Sicily and M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio. No one interested in Italy, or good talk, will want to miss this Italian colloquy. It will take place at 6 p.m. on Thursday, November 6. The venue is the Galleries at the State Library of New South Wales, and the cost $16.50 (or $11 for ABR subscribers and Friends of the State Library). Full details appear on page 33.

Clive James in Mildura

The Mildura Writers’ Festival, held over a weekend in late July, consolidated its reputation as one of Australia’s most pleasurable literary festivals. When, we wonder, will tout Melbourne and Sydney realise how good it is, and make the journey. Clive James opened the festival with a memorable lecture on questions of celebrity and the poetry of Philip Hodgins. We have much pleasure in publishing his 2003 La Trobe University/Australian Book Review Annual Lecture in this issue.

Vale Glen Tomasetti
Glen Tomasetti (born in 1929) – author, poet and folksinger – died on June 25. Tomasetti’s 1976 novel, Thoroughly Decent People, was the first book published by McPhee Gribble (the second was Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip). Her novel Man of Letters was adapted for the ABC by Alma de Groen. Tomasetti continued to write poetry into her last months. Her uncompleted biography of Hepzibah Menuhin was almost twenty years in the making.

What a piece of work

It’s rare for different genres to appear on a Miles Franklin Award shortlist: it’s even rarer when partners appear on the same shortlist. This year we have a bit of both. Among the six shortlisted titles are The Prosperous Thief, by Andrea Goldsmith, and Wild Surmise, by Dorothy Porter. The latter marks Porter’s second appearance on a Miles Franklin Award shortlist, hers being the only verse novels to have appeared to date. The other shortlisted titles are An Angel in Australia, by Tom Keneally; Journey to the Stone Country, by Alex Miller; Moral Hazard, by Kate Jennings; and Of a Boy, by Sonya Hartnett. This year’s prize is worth $28,000. The judges – Hilary McPhee, David Marr, Mark Rubbo, Dagmar Schmidmaier and Elizabeth Webby – will put the authors out of their misery on June 12.

Apart from his many other accomplishments (including a poem on page 43), Clive James is widely regarded as one of the finest essayists writing in English. Next month, we are delighted to announce, he will be our La Trobe University Essayist: his first appearance in this long series. Mr James’s theme will be ‘On Books, Libraries and Writing’. Sydney and Melbourne readers will have a chance to hear him deliver the essay as the Inaugural David Scott Mitchell Memorial Lecture. This new lecture series celebrates the bicentenary, in November 2002, of the first book published in Australia: the New South Wales General Standing Orders, less euphonious than Mr James’s prose perhaps, but equally resilient. It also honours the great bibliophile David Scott Mitchell whose collection formed the foundation of the Mitchell Library. The first lecture will take place at the Sydney Town Hall on 18 November, at 7.30 p.m.; the second at the State Library of Victoria on 19 November, also at 7.30 p.m. Both are free to the public, courtesy of the State Library of New South Wales.

The inaugural La Trobe University/Australian Book Review Annual Lecture, delivered by Peter Porter on 11 September, was a highlight of that tense, at times tawdry, week of commemorations. We were delighted to welcome so many ABR subscribers, who availed themselves of the opportunity to attend the event on a complimentary basis. Subscribers will be offered more gratis tickets in coming months – additional reason to subscribe to the magazine. Meanwhile, Peter Porter’s lecture, ‘The Survival of Poetry’, is published in full as this month’s La Trobe University Essay.

Picador has done rather well in this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award (worth $28,000), with three of the five short-listed novels: Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish, Joan London’s Gilgamesh and Tim Winton’s Dirt Music. Completing the quintet are Steven Carroll’s Art of the Engine Driver (Flamingo) and John Scott’s The Architect (Viking). The winner will be announced in Sydney on June 13.

Perpetual Trustees has been kept busy with short lists, including the one for the 2002 Nita B. Kibble Literary Award for Women Writers. This one, to be announced in Sydney on May 7, is worth $20,000. Three works in different genres have been short-listed: Marion Halligan’s novel The Fog Garden, Jacqueline Kent’s biography of Beatrice Davis, A Certain Style, and Hilary McPhee’s memoir, Other People’s Words.

‘A pox on the GST!’ wrote one of our many new readers last month when filling in her subscription form. ABR has long been famous for its feisty correspondence (never more so than last month). This editor is not about to disagree with our new subscriber. The imposition of GST on books and magazines surely rates as one of the crasser political acts in recent years. Anyone unsure of its effect on literature in this country should ask booksellers and publishers what sort of a year they had in 2000. Readers weren’t unscathed, either.