AustLit

Mary Martin is best known for the bookshops that still bear her name. In postwar Adelaide, at a time when modernism was beginning to influence Australian art and literature, her bookshop became a gathering place for intellectuals and radicals attracted by her unconventional views, her warm manner and her freshly brewed coffee. In the 1960s Mary Martin began a new life in India, determined to encourage an intellectual and artistic awareness between Eastern and Western cultures. She worked with the charismatic Dr. Narasimhan among the tribespeople of the Nilgiri Hills while supporting herself and her staff through her international bookselling operation.