Orwell’s Australia: From Cold War to Culture Wars
Dennis Glover. Scribe, 2003.
isbn 0 908 01156 3, rrp $19.95
I confess, I grew up jealous of those living in the inner suburbs. Year after year, we would make the voyage from the outer east to see my cousins in Richmond. I would return home to my suburban life, dreaming of living in a terrace home with brilliant yellow walls and arty, intellectual people drifting in and out.
Dennis Glover has got me thinking about the suburbs a lot more, and a little differently. You see, people who live ‘out there’ on the fringes of Australia’s cities vote. Not only do they vote, but their constituency has been the contested ground upon which the last two federal elections were fought. According to Glover, the centre–left needs to search for the truth about these fringe dwellers. They need to take the trip from Richmond to Fountain Gate, and Leichhardt to Penrith, and immerse themselves in the life of people who reside there. This is what Orwell would have done.
Glover’s knowledge of Orwell the man is used to great effect throughout the book. I was left wanting to find out more about this person who relinquished the niceties of a middle-class existence to live amongst the real battlers of his time. Australia’s centre–left needs to use Orwell’s example to seek the truth about suburbanites and their aspirations. The truth is out there.
Emily Millane
A Woman of Independence
Kirsty Sword Gusmão.
Macmillan, 2003. isbn 0 732 91197 4, rrp $30
Kirsty Sword Gusmão’s book begins with an endearing scene at the dawn of a new nation.
‘Shouldn’t you at least put on a tie?’ she says to her husband as he leaves to greet the first on a list of foreign dignitaries arriving to mark the birth of East Timor. ‘It’s in my pocket!’ says Xanana Gusmão as he climbs into the back seat of the car which would take him to Dili—15 hours before he is to be sworn in as president.
A degree in Indonesian and Italian from the University of Melbourne is the catalyst that propelled Kirsty Sword Gusmão to become the first lady of Asia’s poorest country.
The candid, journalistic writing of Sword Gusmão makes her book A Woman of Independence a compelling read.
The autobiography follows her journey from a typical Australian upbringing which she left to work as an English teacher and underground human rights activist