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Jessica Margaret Anderson

ジェシカ・アンダーソン

Jeshika Andāson

Aliases: Jessica Margaret Queale

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
1916-09-25 （Gayndah, Queensland, Australia）
Died
2010-07-09 （Elizabeth Bay, New South Wales, Australia） age 93
Nationality
Australian
Languages
English
Religion
Church of England
Residence History
Gayndah, Queensland → Annerley and Yeronga, Brisbane, Queensland → Potts Point and Sydney, New South Wales → London, UK (1937-1940)

Career

Occupations
novelist, short story writer, radio scriptwriter
Active Years
1963-1994
Influenced By
Henry James, Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson

Education

Brisbane State High School
High school
Period: 1928-1933
Year of Graduation: 1933
Country: Australia
Brisbane Technical College Art School
Art
Period: 1933-1934
Year of Graduation: 1934
Country: Australia

Awards

Miles Franklin Literary Award
1978
Work: Tirra Lirra by the River
Organization: Miles Franklin Literary Award
Result: winner
Miles Franklin Literary Award
1980
Work: The Impersonators
Organization: Miles Franklin Literary Award
Result: winner
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Fiction Award
1981
Work: The Impersonators
Category: フィクション
Organization: New South Wales Government
Result: winner

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Tirra Lirra by the River

1978 novel

Elderly Nora Porteous returns to Brisbane after decades away and reflects on her life, exploring themes of suppressed creativity and female self-realization.

female artistic self-realizationlife reflectionsocial constraints
Adaptations
  • [radio play] Tirra Lirra by the River (1975)

The Impersonators

1980 novel

Sylvia Foley returns to Australia after 20 years in England, observing her family's impersonations constrained by possessions and marriage.

homecomingfamily pretensepursuit of freedom

Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories

1987 short story collection

Semi-autobiographical stories from childhood in Queensland's 'warm zone' and Sydney life.

family memoriesurban-rural contrastchildhood

Bibliography

  • An Ordinary Lunacy (1963)
  • The Last Man's Head (1970)
  • The Commandant (1975)
  • Tirra Lirra by the River (1978)
  • The Impersonators (1980)
  • Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories (1987)
  • Taking Shelter (1989)
  • One of the Wattle Birds (1994)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
detailed psychological portraitsexpansive dialoguefemale perspectives
Recurring Motifs
women's social rolesfamily dynamicshomecoming and returnart and creativity

Health

  • speech impediment
    生涯
    Hindered formal education and lent a deliberate quality to her speech
  • stroke
    2010年
    Cause of death

Legacy

Important Australian woman writer who won Miles Franklin Award twice. Known as a late bloomer, debuting novels at 47. Commemorated on Sydney Writers Walk plaque.

Archives

  • State Library of Queensland (brother's collections)
  • National Library of Australia

In Popular Culture

  • Plaque on Sydney Writers Walk

Quotes

  • They are unwilling servants, those skills we learn too late.
    Source: Starting Too Late (Meanjin, 2003) (2003)
  • ...it's encouraging to win a prize. But the success of Tirra Lirra, plus the prize it won and the two prizes The Impersonators won, made me feel less private and more vulnerable...
    Source: Rooms of Their Own (Jennifer Ellison) (1986)

Trivia

  • Mother of screenwriter Laura Jones
  • Late bloomer, first novel published at 47
  • Lifelong speech impediment
  • Worked in Australian Women's Land Army during WWII