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'This first volume of Ruth Park’s autobiography is an account of her isolated childhood in the rainforests of New Zealand, her convent education which encouraged her love of words and writing, and the bitter years of the Depression.She then entered the rough-and-tumble world of journalism and began a reluctant correspondence with a young Australian writer.
'In 1942, Park moved to Sydney and married that writer, D’Arcy Niland. There she would write The Harp in the South, the first of her classic Australian novels. A Fence Around the Cuckoo is the story of one of Australia’s best storytellers and how she learnt her craft.'
Source: Publisher's blurb (Text ed.)
Notes
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Dedication: For my sister.
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Epigraph: 'The Three Wise Men of Gotham loved the springtime so greatly they could not bear to see it vanish. So they built a fence around the cuckoo.'
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Braille.
- Sound recording.
- Large print.
Works about this Work
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A Working Writer : Ruth Park
2018
single work
biography
— Appears in: A Free Flame : Australian Women Writers and Vocation in the Twentieth Century 2018;'The question of vocation takes centre stage in the two volumes of Ruth Park's autobiography, A Fence Around the Cuckoo and Fishing in the Styx. From earliest childhood, Park writes, she knew she would be a writer: 'It had been as if a voice spoke from a burning bush.' Her depiction of her vocation to the literary life contains all the classic elements of the artist's call: it came out of nowhere, it was a summons that could not be set aside or ignored, and it shaped her destiny. Normally, however, this call takes shape in a specific cultural context: the little girl who longs to be a writer begins her life as a passionate reader surrounded by books, and as part of a family or society that holds writers (in the abstract, at least) in high esteem. Park's context was very different. According to A Fence Around the Cuckoo, for the first ten or so years of her life, she had no books, and no access to books. In the early 1920s, her father was part of a work gang that travelled around remote parts of the North Island of New Zealand building roads and bridges, and until she was six years old her home was a tent. Neither her father nor her seamstress mother owned any books. Even when the family settled in the tiny town of it Kuiti, where Ruth would go to school, books were in short supply. As Park Writes in Fence, 'No one I knee. had any books.' The irresolvable problem of Poverty was compounded in the wider community by a moral distrust of all that books stood for. As Park explains, 'It was thought that reading poked your eyes out and kept you from doing wholesome things.' (Introduction)
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Elizabeth Ridell Writes on A Fence Around the Cuckoo
1996
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Ruth Park : A Celebration 1996; (p. 15-16) -
'The Craft So Long to Learn': Ruth Park's Story of Ruth Park
1996
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 17 no. 3 1996; (p. 244-253) -
Untitled
1993
single work
review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 7 no. 2 1993; (p. 22)
— Review of A Fence around the Cuckoo 1992 single work autobiography -
Untitled
1993
single work
review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , April/May vol. 8 no. 4 & 5 1993; (p. 11)
— Review of A Fence around the Cuckoo 1992 single work autobiography
-
Untitled
1993
single work
review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , April/May vol. 8 no. 4 & 5 1993; (p. 11)
— Review of A Fence around the Cuckoo 1992 single work autobiography -
Untitled
1993
single work
review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 7 no. 2 1993; (p. 22)
— Review of A Fence around the Cuckoo 1992 single work autobiography -
Affectionate Memoirs
1992
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser Magazine , 26 September 1992; (p. 6)
— Review of Chance Encounters 1992 single work autobiography ; A Fence around the Cuckoo 1992 single work autobiography -
Snooping
1992
single work
review
— Appears in: Editions , November no. 14 1992; (p. 9-10)
— Review of As Good as a Yarn with You : Letters Between Miles Franklin, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Jean Devanny, Marjorie Barnard, Flora Eldershaw and Eleanor Dark 1996 anthology correspondence biography ; A Fence around the Cuckoo 1992 single work autobiography -
A Fence Around the Cuckoo
1992
single work
review
— Appears in: Voices , Summer vol. 2 no. 4 1992-1993; (p. 115-118)
— Review of A Fence around the Cuckoo 1992 single work autobiography -
'The Craft So Long to Learn': Ruth Park's Story of Ruth Park
1996
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 17 no. 3 1996; (p. 244-253) -
Ruth Park : The Legend, the Life
1992
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 6 September 1992; (p. 113) -
Remembrance of Things Park
1992
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: Good Weekend , 5 September 1992; (p. 18-21) -
Shimmering Times
1993
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Age , 30 October 1993; (p. 7) -
Family the Theme for `Age' Literary Winners
1992
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Age , 5 December 1992; (p. 19) The Sydney Morning Herald , 5 December 1992; (p. 6)
Awards
- 1993 shortlisted NBC Banjo Awards — NBC Banjo Award for Non-Fiction
- 1993 winner Tilly Aston Award for Braille Book of the Year
- 1992 winner The Age Book of the Year Award — Non-Fiction Prize
- 1992 Colin Roderick Award
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cNew Zealand,cPacific Region,