Brian Penton

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Brian Penton (born August 21, 1904 in Brisbane , † August 24, 1951 in Sydney ) was an Australian writer and journalist . He has worked for several well-known Australian and English newspapers and has also published two novels .

Life

Penton grew up in his native Brisbane and worked there in the early twenties in minor roles for the Brisbane Courier . At the age of 19 he moved to England for a year and a half, where he worked as a freelance journalist. After returning to Australia, he worked for the Sydney Morning Herald , where he wrote a daily political column from Parliament in Canberra . Various politicians complained about his disrespect, which led to his being recalled from Canberra by the Morning Herald in 1927 and his work for the newspaper finally ceased. In addition to his journalistic work, Penton also wrote speeches for the Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce and his predecessor Billy Hughes .

In Sydney he led the life of a bohemian during this time , which he also processed literarily. His private life attracted public attention; He was considered a womanizer and man of luxury who rejected social conventions. In 1929 Penton moved to London with his wife Olga for five years , where he worked as a political journalist for The London Aphrodite and the Daily Express (1930-1932). In 1933 he began his work at the Australian Daily Telegraph , where he was employed as an editor from 1941 until his death. During the Second World War he appeared there as a sharp critic of the press censorship on the part of the Australian government. As a journalist, Penton was highly regarded during his tenure with the Daily Telegraph . However, he had a reputation for maintaining an aggressive and authoritarian leadership style. His journalistic texts were controversial and were sometimes considered polemical . In addition to his daily work, he published various writings that dealt critically with Australian society and mentality.

Brian Penton was married to his wife Olga from 1924. The marriage remained childless. In 1951 he died of cancer.

Works

Penton published two novels, which were designed as the first two parts of a trilogy . The third part is considered completed, but was never published. Landtakers and Inheritors are historical novels about Australian history and myth-making, which narratively follow Fyodor Dostoevsky and other authors of the 19th century, but whose themes are influenced by the Great Depression .

Landtakers , published in 1934, deals with the life of the pioneers in Queensland between 1842 and 1864. The main character, Derek Cabell, is a British immigrant who intends to make a lot of money quickly in Australia and then return to his homeland, but who ends up there stays and undergoes a change in character to a successful but amoral businessman. The second part, Inheritors (1936), tells the story of Cabell and his family on until the end of the 19th century. The focus is on the conflicts between Derek Cabell and his four children. The third, no longer published part was supposed to describe the fate of Cabell's descendants in the 20th century.

A model for Penton's trilogy was The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson , whom he met and admired during his time in London. Landtakers in particular was a highly regarded novel in its time and is read today as a representative of Australian post-colonialism ; Inheritors gained less popularity and only saw one edition. Sometimes critics in Penton's novels criticized melodramatic elements and weaknesses in the composition. In addition to the relatively conventionally told novels, there are also literary works that are more experimental. There is an early autobiographical work about Penton's life in Sydney, which is stylistically based on John Dos Passos , but for which he could not find a publisher.

bibliography

Novels

  • Landtakers (1934)
  • Inheritors (1936)

Factual texts

  • Think - Or Be Damned (1941)
  • Advance Australia - Where? (1943)
  • Censored! (1947)

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b Patrick Buckridge: Entry on Brian Penton, in Eugene Benson / LW Conolly (ed.): Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English , Routledge: London and New York (1994), Vol. 2, p. 1212
  2. ↑ a b W.H. Wilde (ed.): The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature , Oxford University Press Australia: Melbourne (1991), pp. 552f.
  3. ^ Entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography , accessed February 18, 2010

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Penton, Brian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Brisbane , Australia
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1951
Place of death Sydney , Australia