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Joan London Joan London i(A31514 works by) (a.k.a. Joan Elizabeth London)
Born: Established: 1948 Perth, Western Australia, ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Joan Elizabeth London holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Australia, and a Graduate Diploma in Teaching English as a Second Language. She has taught English, and worked as a bookseller.

London writes fiction, screenplays and short stories, and has lived in Fremantle, Western Australia.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Golden Age North Sydney : Random House Australia , 2014 7617651 2014 single work novel (taught in 1 units)

'This is a story of resilience, the irrepressible, enduring nature of love, and the fragility of life. From one of Australia's most loved novelists.

'He felt like a pirate landing on an island of little maimed animals. A great wave had swept them up and dumped them here. All of them, like him, stranded, wanting to go home.

'It is 1954 and thirteen-year-old Frank Gold, refugee from wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again after contracting polio in Australia. At The Golden Age Children's Polio Convalescent Hospital in Perth, he sees Elsa, a fellow-patient, and they form a forbidden, passionate bond.

'The Golden Age becomes the little world that reflects the larger one, where everything occurs, love and desire, music, death, and poetry. Where children must learn that they are alone, even within their families.

'Written in Joan London's customary clear-eyed prose, The Golden Age evokes a time past and a yearning for deep connection. It is a rare and precious gem of a book from one of Australia's finest novelists. ' (Publication summary)

2016 winner Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Fiction
2015 shortlisted Asher Literary Award
2015 winner Prime Minister's Literary Awards Fiction
2016 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
2015 shortlisted Colin Roderick Award
2015 winner Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award
2015 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
2015 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
2015 shortlisted ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
2015 winner Kibble Literary Awards Nita Kibble Literary Award
2015 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
2015 shortlisted The Stella Prize
2017 longlisted Wellcome Book Prize
y separately published work icon The Good Parents North Sydney : Random House Australia , 2008 Z1457091 2008 single work novel

'Maya de Jong, an eighteen-year-old country girl from the West, comes to live in Melbourne and starts an affair with her boss, the enigmatic Maynard Flynn, whose wife is dying of cancer. When Maya's parents, Toni and Jacob, arrive to stay with her, they are told by her housemate that Maya has gone away and no one knows where she is.

'As Toni and Jacob wait and search for Maya in Melbourne, everything in their lives is brought into question. They recall the yearning and dreams, the betrayals and choices of their pasts - choices with unexpected and irrevocable consequences.

'With Maya's disappearance, the lives of all those close to her come into focus, to reveal the complexity of the ties that bind us to one another, to parents, children, siblings, friends and lovers.' (Publisher's blurb)

2009 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Fiction
2009 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards People's Choice Award
2009 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
2009 shortlisted Barbara Jefferis Award
2009 shortlisted South East Asia and South Pacific Region Best Book
2008 shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award Fiction Prize
y separately published work icon Gilgamesh : A Novel Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2001 Z894113 2001 single work novel (taught in 4 units)

'Gilgamesh is the epic story of a mother's search for the father of her child - from Australia to Armenia via England and Mesopotamia - all under the shadow of the imminent, and soon to be very real, Second World War. Narrated in a clear, poetic voice, it is a portrayal of the different journeys we choose to take through life and what happens when ordinary people get caught up in extraordinary, seismic events.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (2018 ed.).

2002 winner The Age Book of the Year Award Fiction Prize
2002 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
2002 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
2001 shortlisted Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Fiction
Last amended 10 Dec 2019 16:08:45
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