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'Don Watson was employed as Keating's speechwriter. Based on the diaries Watson kept through the four turbulent and exhausting years of Keating's Prime Ministership, on its release Recollections of a Bleeding Heart was widely deemed a masterpiece. It is at once a groundbreaking "inside" account of politics and a profound and extraordinarily frank study of the most intriguing and visionary politician in Australia's modern history. Now, when vision and character have all but vanished from politics, Don Watson's Recollections makes absorbing - and essential - reading.' (From the publisher's website, 10th anniversary edition.)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Australia in Three Books
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , September vol. 81 no. 3 2022; (p. 26-29)
— Review of Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM 2002 single work biography ; Robert Menzies' Forgotten People 1992 single work biography ; The Game : A Portrait of Scott Morrison 2021 single work biography -
Watson on Keating
2021
single work
essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 80 no. 2 2021;'This year marks 30 years since Paul Keating became Australia’s twenty-fourth prime minister. Keating’s time in the Lodge is often remembered for the eloquence of his ‘big picture’, a reconciled, republican Australia finding its security in, not from, Asia. Keating brought to the top job not only a record as the most reforming treasurer since the war, but a coherent view of Australian history that distinguished him from his predecessors in the job. His speechwriter as prime minister, Melbourne historian and author Don Watson, helped to craft many of Keating’s most famous public addresses, from the Redfern Speech of December 1992 to his moving eulogy for the Unknown Soldier on Remembrance Day 1993 and his landmark address on an Australian Republic to the Commonwealth Parliament in 1995. Watson’s account of his time working as Keating’s wordsmith was published in 2002 in the award-winning Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM.' (Introduction)
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Country and Lives : Australian Biography and Its History
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Cercles , no. 35 2015; 'There have been attempts to relate national characteristics “by reference to climate, habitat and soil and investing the collective subject with psychological attributes” for over two millennia. More recently historians of modern nationalism developed elaborate typologies often citing Martin Heidegger’s arguments that “the being of the human finds its essence in the being of place — the belonging together of being and topos” [MALPAS 2012 : 5-6]. And yet the challenge to the ontological connection between self and place, what Jeff Malpas describes as the “topological analysis of self and identity”, has a long philosophical tradition, too. This debate over experience, biography and nation has implications for historians who have raised empirical questions about the development of collective sensibilities over time among recent emigrant peoples, their physical peculiarities, behaviourial quirks and emergent national character. In this paper I consider the role that biography writing played in the construction of an Australian national identity geared to what Pierre Nora famously termed as the “roman national”, or the collective discourse on the history of the nation and its place in the world. I argue that Australian historians played a significant role in the history of biograpy writing and, related to it, the debate over collective Australian identity.' (Introduction) -
The Contract : Keating's Speechwriter as Black Box or Hand-Held Camera
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 336 2011; (p. 19-20)
— Review of Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM 2002 single work biography -
[Review] Recollections of a Bleeding Heart
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 15 October 2011; (p. 27)
— Review of Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM 2002 single work biography
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[Review] Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM
2002
single work
review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 75 2002; (p. 167-168) JAS Review of Books , August no. 8 2002; Journal of Australian Studies , no. 73 2002; (p. 174-175)
— Review of Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM 2002 single work biography -
Untitled
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Journal of Politics and History , vol. 49 no. 1 2003; (p. 134-135)
— Review of Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM 2002 single work biography -
Life Writing, not Biography
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 170 2003; (p. 131-134)
— Review of Hughes 2001 single work biography ; Keeper of the Faith : A Biography of Jim Cairns 2002 single work biography ; Pompey Elliott 2002 single work biography ; Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM 2002 single work biography -
Labor's Love Lost
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 62 no. 1 2003; (p. 79-90) The Best Australian Essays 2003 2003; (p. 108-120)
— Review of Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM 2002 single work biography -
Not a Review More a Commentary : A Historian Looks at Keating
2002
single work
review
— Appears in: AQ : Journal of Contemporary Analysis , May-June vol. 74 no. 3 2002; (p. 38-39)
— Review of Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM 2002 single work biography -
War on Words
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 5 October 2002; (p. 1-2) -
Still Life : A Conversation with Don Watson
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Eureka Street , December vol. 12 no. 10 2002; (p. 27-33) -
Keating, Kirby, Ruddock and the Ship that Sank
2002
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Best Australian Essays 2002 2002; (p. 31-43) -
Sitting in the Driver's Seat of Biography
2003
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 6 April 2003; (p. 10) -
After Writing about Paul Keating
2002
single work
prose
— Appears in: The Sydney Papers , Winter vol. 14 no. 3 2002; (p. 131-137)
Awards
- 2003 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Award for Non-Fiction — shortlisted
- 2003 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
- 2003 joint winner National Biography Award
- 2002 winner Colin Roderick Award
- 2002 winner The Courier-Mail Book of the Year Award