Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson

Thereafter, Anderson lived in Sydney until her death in 2010. She travelled in 1937 to London and lived there for several years with her partner, Ron McGill, at a time when living openly with a man to whom you were not married was both unusual and frowned upon, before returning to Australia at the beginning of World War II and marrying McGill.

Born in 1916 in the Queensland country town of Gayndah, Jessica Anderson was brought up in Brisbane, where, after the end of her schooling, she briefly attended art college before moving, at the age of eighteen, to Sydney. It may or may not be a coincidence that the narrator–heroines of both Monkey Grip and Tirra Lirra by the River are both called Nora it’s the name of the main character in Ibsen’s classic play A Doll’s House (1879), which, like both of these novels, explores the theme of women’s emancipation and selfhood in modern society.Īnderson’s own life was adventurous in this respect, particularly in her youth when the norm for women was marriage and children, rather than sexual freedom, careers, or vocations. But the two big awards to Anderson and Garner in 1978 marked a shift in readerly tastes and the beginning of something more like equality in the writing, publishing and reading of fiction in Australia. There were isolated exceptions, most notably Christina Stead, Elizabeth Harrower, and Thea Astley, all now regarded as major Australian novelists. Both of these books have since become classics of Australian literature, rarely out of print and regularly rediscovered by new generations of readers.Īustralian fiction, both in its production and in its critical reception, had been dominated by male writers since the end of World War II. In 1978, Australia’s two most coveted national literary prizes of the time were both won by women: Helen Garner’s first novel Monkey Grip (1977) won the National Book Council Award for fiction, and the Miles Franklin Literary Award was won by Tirra Lirra by the River (1978), Jessica Anderson’s fourth novel.

Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson