AustLit

'Elizabeth Jolley is one of Australia's most significant writers: she published some two dozen books of fiction, essays and radio dramas, won every major Australian literary award, received four honorary doctorates, was awarded the Order of Australia for service to Australian Literature in 1988, and was named an Australian 'National Living Treasure' in 1997.

Her career has its roots in the UK, the place of her birth, schooling and early marriage. In 1959 she travelled with her three children and her husband to Perth, Western Australia, where Leonard Jolley took up a position as foundation Librarian of the University of Western Australia. She brought with her a trunk full of unpublished/rejected manuscripts which provided the initial materials from which she developed her published fictions and essays in Australia.

This article explores the institutional frameworks in Australia which enabled Jolley - a constant writer from childhood - to develop, in David Carter's phrase, 'a career in writing' from the mid-1970s onwards. It argues that Jolley rewrote her foundation manuscripts (written in another country) both to imagine Australian lives and to conform to Australian publishers' requirements. In doing so, it traces how the fiction and essays translate the experience of migration/exile, often thematised through the recurrent image of being 'on the edge,' into the particular and powerful ethic of love that informs Jolley's writing.' (Author's abstract)

'Elizabeth Jolley was a fine writer. Her publishing career began when she was in her 50s in Australia, but as author Brian Dibble demonstrates, her writing developed through the decades in England and Scotland, from her family of origin, to boarding schools and hospital wards, and into her independent adult life. The array of wild characters in her fiction - misfits and those on the edge of society - can also be found in the Jolley's remarkable life. It could be said that the times suited Jolley's rise as a major Australian writer, when old habits - of who and what could be published - were broken. Brian Dibble was given complete access to the writer's private papers and has spent more than a decade travelling the world to follow leads on the story of Elizabeth Jolley. This is a lyrical and readable biography, one that presents a world of family and pleasures, but is always infused somewhere with an unexpended sadness.' (Publication summary)

The Elizabeth Jolley Research Collection is 'a virtual research resource for scholars interested in one of Australia's most significant writers'. The Elizabeth Jolley Research Collection includes 'Elizabeth Jolley - A Bibliography: 1965-2007', a comprehensive bibliography of works by and about Elizabeth Jolley, and digital access to many items in the 'Bibliography'.

'Compiled over 20 years by Barbara Milech and Brian Dibble, the 'Bibliography' lists Jolley's novels, short stories, plays, juvenilia, reviews, articles, and occasional pieces. Print, audio and visual adaptations of her work. Interviews with her, feature articles about her, and biographical pieces on her. Reviews of her publications, dissertations about her work, and critical articles and books wholly or partially on her work.'

Also included is information on Jolley's early life and a list of awards and other forms of recognition.

Source: Curtin University of Technology website, http://info.ccs.curtin.edu.au/, and information from the Collection website.
Sighted: 11/02/2008