Letters
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... (read more)Seumas Spark reviews ‘Paul and Paula: A history of separation, survival and belonging’ by Tim McNamara
In Working: Researching, interviewing, writing, published in 2019, the great biographer Robert A. Caro tells of his writing methods and the lengths to which he goes to gain a better understanding of his subject. Reading Tim McNamara’s Paul and Paula, I was reminded of Caro’s way of research and writing and of his determination to place himself in his subject’s milieu. McNamara spent considerable time in Vienna researching Paul and Paula, stalking the streets for clues, and his efforts show. He writes with verve about the book’s three main characters – Paul Kurz and his wife, Paula, and the city of Vienna, before and during the Nazi occupation – and his search to uncover and understand their stories.
... (read more)Brenda Walker reviews 'A Kind of Confession: The writer’s private world' by Alex Miller
Alex Miller’s most recent book, A Kind of Confession, begins with notebook entries from his pre-publication period – long years in which his deep trust in his identity as a writer appears to have been unshaken. In 1971, he notes: ‘I’ve been committed to writing since I was 21, 13 years. Quite a stretch, considering I’ve yet to publish.’ He was in his fifties before his first novel emerged. Yet even when he complains about his apparent failure – ‘Almost 40 and only 2 short stories published. It makes no sense’ – there is no real lapse of direction; he knows what he is. We can’t read excerpts from these early notebooks and diaries without an awareness of his later success as the winner of significant prizes, including the Miles Franklin Literary Award (twice), the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Melbourne Prize for Literature, the Manning Clark Medal, and the Weishanhi Best Foreign Novel of the Year.
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Clare Wright’s letter in response to Bain Attwood (ABR, August 2023) should profoundly disturb and unsettle anyone in this country concerned about the survival of active, rigorous, and engaged historical scholarship.
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