Drusilla Modjeska (born 1946) is a contemporary Australian writer and editor.

Life [ edit ]

Modjeska was born in London and was raised in Hampshire . She spent several years in Papua New Guinea (where she was briefly a student at the University of Papua New Guinea ) before arriving in Australia in 1971. ^[1] She studied for an undergraduate degree at the Australian National University before completing a PhD in history at the University of New South Wales which was published as Exiles at Home: Australian Women Writers 1925?1945 (1981).

Modjeska's writing often explores the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. The best known of her work are Poppy (1990), a fictionalised biography of her mother, and Stravinsky's Lunch (2001), a feminist reappraisal of the lives and work of Australian painters Stella Bowen and Grace Cossington Smith . She has also edited several volumes of stories, poems and essays, including the work of Lesbia Harford and a 'Focus on Papua New Guinea' issue for the literary magazine Meanjin . ^[2]

In 2006 Modjeska was a senior research fellow at the University of Sydney , "investigating the interplay of race, gender and the arts in post-colonial Papua New Guinea". ^[3] She has also taught at the University of Technology, Sydney . ^{[ citation needed ]}

Awards [ edit ]

• 1983 ? Walter McRae Russell Award for Exiles at Home ^[4]
• 1991 ? New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards , Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction for Poppy
• 1995 ? New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards , Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction for The Orchard
• 2000 ? New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards , Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction for Stravinsky's Lunch
• 2000 ? Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for Stravinsky's Lunch

Bibliography [ edit ]

Novels

• Poppy . (1990) ISBN   0-86914-099-X
• The Orchard . (1994) ISBN   0-330-35655-0 Review
• The Mountain (2012)

Non-fiction

• Women Writers: A study in Australian cultural history, 1920?1939 . (1979)
• Exiles at Home: Australian women writers 1925?1945 . (1981)
• Inner Cities: Australian women's memory of place . (1989)
• Stravinsky's Lunch . (Picador, 1999) ISBN   0-330-36186-4
• Timepieces . (Picador, 2002) ISBN   0-330-36372-7 Review SMH Review 2002
• The Green in Glass: The work of Janet Laurence . (Sydney: Pesaro, 2005)
• Second Half First . (2015)

Edited

• The Poems of Lesbia Harford . (1985)
• Sisters . ( Angus & Robertson , 1995) ISBN   0-207-19032-1
• The best Australian essays . ( Black Inc. 2006) ISBN   1-86395-278-0

Book reviews [ edit ]

• Modjeska, Drusilla (March 2009). "Arise!". The Monthly . 43 : 60?62. Review of Philip Roth, Indignation .

References [ edit ]

External links [ edit ]

• Official website