Eleanor Dark

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Eleanor Dark (around 1945)

Eleanor Dark (born August 26, 1901 in Sydney , New South Wales , † September 11, 1985 in Katoomba , New South Wales) was an Australian writer who was critical of time and society, especially the social problems of the 1930s. Her novels Prelude to Christopher from 1934 and Return to Coolami from 1936 were awarded gold medals by the Australian Literature Society .

Life

Eleanor Dark was the second of three children of the writer and MP Dowell Philip O'Reilly and his wife Eleanor McCulloch O'Reilly. By the time Eleanor finished school, she was not qualified for college because she had failed math. She learned typewriting and accepted a job as a secretary. In 1922 she married Eric Payten Dark, a generalist who wrote books, articles, and tracts on political and medical topics. Eric Payten Dark (1889–1987) was an active member of the left wing of the Labor Party in New South Wales.

He participated in current debates as a socialist , although he was not a member of the Communist Party of Australia . They lived in Katoomba , New South Wales, where Eleanor wrote eight of her ten novels and other short stories and articles. Her last work, Lantana Lane , was also created on this farm. The family had a son and two daughters. Her withdrawal to Queensland probably had to do with worries about the anti-communist attacks by the Conservative government of Robert Menzies and the ASIO intelligence agency . Like other writers and commentators who criticized Menzies' politics, the Darks were believed to have been under surveillance.

The second son of the Darks Michael dedicated his parents' house in Katoomba to a writer's center in 1988, the Varuna - The Writer's House in Katoomba . Michael Dark is the President of the Eleanor Dark Foundation .

plant

Eleanor Dark was a writer shaped by the experiences of the Great Depression , the Cold War, and concerns about nuclear war. She wrote in her books about the rights and suffering of the Aborigines , environmental degradation, and women's and social rights. She belonged to a generation of writers who had an idea of ​​what their country and culture could have been like, and she sharpened her eyes on what happened in the past and what this means for the future.

Her stories, poems, articles and essays are an example of a wide worldview. They came about at a time when a generation of writers was developing who processed the experiences of the 1930s, including the struggle for justice.

Her novel The Timeless Land tells the story of the British colonialists, Aborigines and convicts of Australia. For one month in 1941 it was Book of the Month in the USA. With Storm of Time and No Barrier , he forms a trilogy that was filmed in 1980.

Dark became a member of the Fellowship of Australian Writer in 1939, and Vice President of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties in the same year. She also expressly opposed the idea of ​​women "home to the stove" propagated by the German National Socialists. However, like Miles Franklin , she published works in the Publicist. the press organ of the fascist Australia First Movement , a movement that turned against British dominance of Australia and hoped for a liberation of the British from Japan during World War II . She was not a member of any political party.

Works (selection)

stories
Novels
  • Slow Dawning . Long Books, London 1932.
  • Prelude to Christopher . Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1937 (EA London 1934).
  • Return to Coolami . Angus & Robertson, London 1981, ISBN 0-207-14271-8 (EA London 1936).
  • Sun Across the Sky . Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1938 (EA London 1937).
  • Waterway . Angus & Robertson, London 1979, ISBN 0-207-13838-9 (EA London 1938).
  • The Little Company . Penguin Books, New York 1986, ISBN 0-14-016150-3 (EA New York 1945).
  • The Timeless Land Trilogy.
    • Volume 1: The Timeless Land . Angus & Robertson, London 1988, ISBN 0-207-14380-3 (EA New York 1941)
German: The first governor. Australian novel . Sponholtz Verlag, Hanover 1954.
    • Volume 2: Storm of Time . Angus & Robertson, London 1980, ISBN 0-207-14380-3 (EA New York 1948)
    • Volume 3: No Barrier Angus & Robertson, London 1986, ISBN 0-86068-577-2 (EA New York 1953)

Film adaptations

  • Michael Carson and Rob Stewart (Direction): Wildes weites Land - 1980 (based on the novel The timeless land ).

literature

  • Arthur G. Day: Eleanor Dark (= Twayne's authors series. Volume 382). Twayne, Boston / Mass. 1976, ISBN 0-8057-6224-8 .
  • Barbara Brooks, Judith Clark: Eleanor Dark. A Writer's Life . Pan Macmillan, Sydney 1998, ISBN 0-7329-0903-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ National Library of Australia : Papers of Eleanor Dark (1901–1985) (English), accessed March 26, 2011.
  2. ↑ varuna.com.au : The Dark Family. (English), accessed March 26, 2011.
  3. ↑ Eleanor Dark. on: austlit.edu.au , (English), July 25, 2006, accessed on March 26, 2011.
  4. ^ A b Eleanor Dark: Child of the Century. at: varuna.com.au , accessed March 26, 2011.
  5. ↑ According to Brockhaus Encyclopedia. Volume 5, Volume 19, 1988.
  6. ^ Dark, Eleanor (1901-1985). at: adbonline.anu.edu.au (English), accessed on March 16, 2011.
  7. ^ Barbara Winter: The Australia-First Movement and the Publicist, 1936-1942. Glass House Books, Carindale 2005, ISBN 1-876819-91-X , pp. 2 and 11 (English), accessed on March 26, 2011 online from Google Books
  8. ↑ Volumes two and three have not yet been translated into German (as of 2014).
personal data
SURNAME Dark, Eleanor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Sydney , New South Wales
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1985
Place of death Katoomba , New South Wales