AustLit logo
NLA image of person
Germaine Greer Germaine Greer i(A32756 works by)
Born: Established: 1939 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender: Female
Expatriate assertion
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 11 y separately published work icon White Beech : The Rainforest Years Germaine Greer , London : Bloomsbury , 2013 6560244 2013 single work autobiography

'For years I had wandered Australia with an aching heart. Everywhere I had ever travelled across the vast expanse of the fabulous country where I was born I had seen devastation, denuded hills, eroded slopes, weeds from all over the world, feral animals, open-cut mines as big as cities, salt rivers, salt earth, abandoned townships, whole beaches made of beer cans...

One bright day in December 2001, sixty-two-year-old Germaine Greer found herself confronted by an irresistible challenge in the shape of sixty hectares of dairy farm, one of many in south-east Queensland that, after a century of logging, clearing and downright devastation, had been abandoned to their fate.

She didn't think for a minute that by restoring the land she was saving the world. She was in search of heart’s ease. Beyond the acres of exotic pasture grass and soft weed and the impenetrable curtains of tangled Lantana canes there were Macadamias dangling their strings of unripe nuts, and Black Beans with red and yellow pea flowers growing on their branches … and the few remaining White Beeches, stupendous trees up to forty metres in height, logged out within forty years of the arrival of the first white settlers. To have turned down even a faint chance of bringing them back to their old haunts would have been to succumb to despair.

Once the process of rehabilitation had begun, the chance proved to be a dead certainty. When the first replanting shot up to make a forest and rare caterpillars turned up to feed on the leaves of the new young trees, she knew beyond doubt that at least here biodepletion could be reversed.

Greer describes herself as an old dog who succeeded in learning a load of new tricks, inspired and rejuvenated by her passionate love of Australia and of Earth, most exuberant of small planets. ' (Publisher's blurb)

1 [Essay] : The Jerilderie Letter Germaine Greer , 2013 single work essay
— Appears in: Reading Australia 2013-;

'The Jerilderie Letter was written for publication, but it is not a work of literature. It is not history either as it makes no claim to objectivity. It has been called a confession, but it is not one, because the writer expresses no shame, no guilt and no repentance. It is kin to the speeches that once condemned men were allowed to make when they mounted the scaffold where they were to die, in which they told their versions of the events that had led them to that point. The letter’s author, notorious bushranger Ned Kelly, knew when he composed it that he was certain to hang.' (Introduction)

1 Writers Wonder if It's Worth Putting Pen to Paper Germaine Greer , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 29 December 2012; (p. 40)
1 The Words That Have Inspired Helen Garner , Thomas Keneally , Germaine Greer , Alex Miller , Colm Toibin , Kerry Greenwood , Elliot Perlman , Brenda Niall , Anna Funder , Luke Davies , Peter Temple , Jennifer Maiden , Richard Flanagan , Michael Robotham , Kate Holden , Michael Farrell , Chris Wallace-Crabbe , Sophie Cunningham , Robert Adamson , James Bradley , Kim Scott , Charlotte Wood , Michael McGirr , Gig Ryan , Chris Womersley , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 8 December 2012; (p. 26-29) The Canberra Times , 8 December 2012; (p. 19-22) The Sydney Morning Herald , 8-9 December 2012; (p. 32-36)
Australian writers and reviewers, together with Ireland's Colm Toibin, each nominate their best books of 2012. Some of the books listed are by Australian writers.
1 1 Pocket So Full of Holes, It Might Well be Empty Germaine Greer , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 3 November 2012; (p. 48)
Germaine Greer discusses some of the Australian Bohemians absent from the index to Dancing with Empty Pockets : Australia's Bohemians since 1960 (2012).
1 How Festivals Can Avoid More Exile on Grey Street Germaine Greer , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 6 October 2012; (p. 48)
Germaine Greer explains the background to her 'keynote' address at the 2012 Brisbane Writers' Festival and offers her views on such festivals in general.
1 As Chants Would Have It, 'Aussie' Is Here to Stay Germaine Greer , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 28 July 2012; (p. 48)
Germaine Greer investigates the origins of the Australian sports chant 'Aussie, Aussie Aussie!'
1 Macquarie's Mitts All over Our Supposed Strine Germaine Greer , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 19 May 2012; (p. 52)
1 From : Daddy, We Hardly Knew You Germaine Greer , 2009 extract autobiography (Daddy, We Hardly Knew You)
— Appears in: Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature 2009; (p. 956-963)
1 Living in the 70s Germaine Greer , 2009 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 31 January 2009; (p. 11)
1 1 Once Upon a Time in a Land, Far, Far Away Germaine Greer , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Guardian , 16 December 2008;

— Review of Australia Baz Luhrmann , Stuart Beattie , Ronald Harwood , Richard Flanagan , 2008 single work film/TV
1 All I Want for Christmas... Germaine Greer , Bryce Courtenay , 2008 single work column
— Appears in: SundayLife , 21 December 2008; (p. 10-12, 14)

'What would you like for Christmas, if there were no strings attached? We asked some famous Australians - and a couple of New Zealanders - what they would most like to see in their stocking.'

Those questioned are: Mike Hussey, Jennifer Hawkins, Tim Finn, Germaine Greer, Bryce Courtenay, Libby Trickett and Rhys Darby.

1 The Storm Within Germaine Greer , 2008 extract essay (On Rage)
— Appears in: The Age , 2 August 2008; (p. 12-13) The Sydney Morning Herald , 2-3 August 2008; (p. 32)
1 12 y separately published work icon On Rage Germaine Greer , Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2008 Z1516600 2008 single work essay

'On Rage is Germaine Greer's enduring essay about Aboriginal dispossession. With characteristic acuity and passion, Greer looks to the causes of rage and its consequences in Indigenous Australian men.

'Originally published six months after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008, this is an urgent and provocative examination of disempowerment by one of Australia's leading polemicists. ' (Publication summary)

1 y separately published work icon Lines of life : 101 poems by 101 women Germaine Greer (editor), London : Faber , 2006 26545102 2006 anthology poetry

'In Lines of Life: 101 Poems by 101 Women Germaine Greer brings together poems 'written from the point of view of a woman and most of them about being female.' This wonderful collection explores a range of female poets from the sixteenth century to the present day and celebrates what it is like to be a woman, from declarations of wifely appreciation to rueful reflections on the vicissitudes of love, from the complications of childbirth and rearing to the necessary labour of writing. Greer's selection of these is a sampling of the variousness of voices and includes writers who have often been overwhelmed in history by their male counterparts. Above all it conveys Greer's commitment and contribution to the history of women's writing.' (Publication summary)

1 Germaine Greer on Merrie England Germaine Greer , 2005 single work prose
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 7-8 May 2005; (p. 2)
1 The Last Word Germaine Greer , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Whitefella Jump Up : The Shortest Way to Nationhood 2004; (p. 217-232)
1 It Wouldn't Pay to Return Home Germaine Greer , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 17-18 April 2004; (p. 27)
Greer reacts to the 'badging' by The Australian newspaper of her essay, originally commissioned by The Times (London) and re-published by The Australian under the banner 'Slack and Insufferable'. She also takes issue with the negative reaction of Australians, including the Prime Minister, John Howard, to the thoughts expressed in the essay.
1 1 Slack and Insufferable Germaine Greer , 2004 single work essay
— Appears in: The Australian , 22 January 2004; (p. 11)
1 One Big Happy Mob Germaine Greer , 2003 extract essay (Whitefella Jump Up : The Shortest Way to Nationhood)
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 6-7 September 2003; (p. 24)
Greer contends that 'the Australian national character derives from the influence of the Aborigines whose dogged resistance to an imported and inappropriate culture has affected our culture more deeply than is usually recognised'. Greer illustrates her argument with reference to Tom Collins' Such is Life : Being Certain Extracts from the Diary of Tom Collins and the short stories of Henry Lawson.
X