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Notes
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A work of biography and fiction: In 'Writing Poppy' published in her Timepieces (Picador, 2002) Modjeska writes, 'Too much of it [Poppy] came from my life to call it fiction, and too much of it was invented to call it biography. As neither term seemed right, I opted for both.' (p. 67)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille, sound recording.
Works about this Work
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'Betwix and Between' : Rereading Poppy as Autofiction
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Philament , September no. 25 2019; 'Autofiction has been a buzzword within anglophone literary circles in recent years. Several books published in 2018 stimulated the mainstream conversation, including Rachel Cusk’s Kudos, Sheila Heti’s Motherhood, Olivia Laing’s Crudo, and the final instalment of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle series. Scholarship on the mode also flourished in 2018: Hywel Dix edited a groundbreaking essay collection called Autofiction in English, and Marjorie Worthington published the first monograph on American autofiction. The concept of autofiction has been part of the French literary lexicon since the late 1970s, introduced by Serge Doubrovsky and developed by theorists [END PAGE 7] such as Vincent Colonna, Philippe Gasparini, Arnaud Genon, Isabelle Grell, and Philippe Vilain; its appearance in English-language conversations, however, is a recent phenomenon.' (Introduction) -
Discarding the Disclaimer? Reappraising Fiction as a Mode of Biography
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , April vol. 20 no. 1 2016; 'While the biographical novel has created an openness to representing lives in fiction it is usually expected to provide a disclaimer certifying the work’s unreliability despite its potential for truth-telling and rich tools for writers wishing to tell the stories of real people. Even so, more serious attention to the historical novel since Lukács, the impact of the postmodern novel, plus the variety of published works that have adopted fictional strategies to tell lives over the last half century suggest this perspective is shifting. Using Ina Schabert’s seminal work on fictional biography as a scholarly reference point, this paper explores fiction’s biographical capacity, turning to published works and personal writing practice to try to reappraise the potential of fiction as a mode of biography.' (Publication abstract) -
Developing a Connective Feminine Discourse : Drusilla Modjeska on Women’s Lives, Love and Art
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Coolabah , no. 16 2015; (p. 101-111) 'This paper discusses the work of the Australian writer and historian Drusilla Modjeska through a focus on the intersections between women‟s lives, love and art, which constitute the central triptych of Modjeska‟s writing. It argues that Modjeska‟s oeuvre unfolds a connective feminine discourse through a development of what the paper calls hinging tropes, discursive connectors that join life, love and art, such as weaving, folding and talking. That connective feminine discourse is indeed central to Modjeska‟s personal and sometimes idiosyncratic feminism.' (Publication summary) -
Giving Solidity to Pure Wind : Temporising as Transformation
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , April vol. 19 no. 1 2015;'Jared Diamond asked the acclaimed evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (1904-2005) why Aristotle didn’t come up with the theory of evolution. Mayr’s answer was ‘Frage stellen’ which Diamond translates as ‘a way of asking questions [sic]’ (Byrne 2013). The idea that a particular way-of-asking might generate a particular way-of-knowing and, indeed, a particular branch-of-knowledge, is utterly intriguing, especially when we frame the practice of creative writing in those terms: as a way of asking questions.
'Drusilla Modjeska unpacks the concept of ‘temporising’ in her article ‘Writing Poppy’ (Modjeska 2002: 75). This discussion invites us to consider the generative capabilities of the temporising space – as an imaginative space for writers, as an alternate way of asking questions … of seeing, being, knowing.
In narrative, the questions that underpin the work do not necessarily appear in the surface-content of the text. In this way, the story is a metaphorical representation of the questions that lie beneath. As Aristotle suggests, metaphor relies on ‘an intuitive perception of the similarity [to homoion theorein] in dissimilars’ (Ricoeur 1977: 23). In narrative we contemplate a question, or an idea, within the context of a metaphorical other. This is a form of temporising: of ‘slip[ping] into other time frames’ as a means of ‘retreat[ing] and consider[ing]’ (Modjeska 2002: 75, 76). In narrative time, we consider one thing through an alternate temporal lens. We prevaricate in otherness.
'Fiction-making represents a very particular way of asking questions. With reference to the process of writing the short story – ‘Everything that matters is silvery white’ – it is clear that ‘making’ narrative is a way of asking questions that is assisted by the transformative temporising space.' (Publication abstract)
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Poppy : A Post-“Radical Feminist” Life-writing
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies in China : Research on Australia by Chinese Scholars 2014; 'Poppy by Australian writer Drusilla Modjeska is a typical life-writing which is based on the life experiences of an ordinary woman—the author’s own mother. In this work, Modjeska made great efforts to interpret three sets of relationships, i.e., that between “mother” and “daughter”, that between “father tongue” and “mother tongue”, and that between form experiments and feminist political tasks. Through examining these sets of relationships, this essay aims to disclose that this work is actually a serious theoretical revision of radical feminism in an unfavorable social context of Australia in the late 1980s and 1990s.' (Publication abstract)
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[Review] : Poppy
1991
single work
review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , December and vol. 6 no. 1 January vol. 5 no. 12 1991; (p. 15)
— Review of Poppy 1990 single work novel -
Editors Down their Blue Pencils to Show how it's Done
1990
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian Magazine , 3-4 November 1990; (p. 7)
— Review of Women and Horses 1990 single work novel ; Hot Shots 1990 single work novel ; Poppy 1990 single work novel -
Wild Bunch of Tall Poppies
1990
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 2 October vol. 112 no. 5739 1990; (p. 112)
— Review of Against Time and Place 1990 single work novel ; Miss Gymkhana, R. G. Menzies and Me : Small Town Life in the Fifties 1990 single work autobiography ; Poppy 1990 single work novel ; Wild Card : An Autobiography, 1923-1958 1990 single work autobiography -
Books Noticed
1990
single work
review
— Appears in: Blast , Spring no. 13/14 1990; (p. 32-33)
— Review of Schemetime 1990 single work novel ; The Bluebird Cafe 1990 single work novel ; The Country Without Music 1990 single work novel ; Salt 1990 single work novel ; The Story of the Year of 1912 in the Village of Elza Darzins : A Novel 1990 single work novel ; Poppy 1990 single work novel -
A Gift of Sorrow: Modjeska's Poppy
1990
single work
review
— Appears in: Scripsi , vol. 6 no. 3 1990; (p. 137-142)
— Review of Poppy 1990 single work novel -
Through Doors and Windows : In-Between Spaces and the Woman Artist in Drusilla Modjeska's Writings
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Between Literature and Painting : Three Australian Women Writers 2002; (p. 129-171, notes 180-181) -
Biography, Narrative and 'a Lived Life' : Problematics of Identity in Poppy
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Identity and Justice : Conflicts, Contradictions and Contingencies 2004; (p. 69-84) -
Lunch with Grace & Stella
Lunch with Grace and Stella
1999
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 28 August 1999; (p. 9) -
Subject Matters
1995
single work
criticism
essay
— Appears in: A Sense of Difference 1995; (p. 15-23) The author offers comments on the writing process in five Australian novels by women writers. She stresses that her comments are those of a practitioner reflecting on the work of friends. -
Tribe Shows the Way
2007
single work
column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 2 June 2007; (p. 3) Discusses Drusilla Modjeska's career as a writer and her 2004 visit to New Guinea to study the traditional art of the Omie tribespeople.
Awards
- 1991 winner 3M Talking Book of the Year Award
- 1991 joint winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
- 1991 joint winner New South Wales State Literary Awards — Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
- 1991 winner NBC Banjo Awards — NBC Banjo Award for Non-Fiction
- 1990 winner FAW Herb Thomas Literary Award
- Sydney, New South Wales,
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London,
cEngland,ccUnited Kingdom (UK),cWestern Europe, Europe,