10 November 2006
Writing the biographies of Patrick White and Christina Stead
|
Patrick White didn't burn his drafts and manuscripts. He certainly told people that he destroyed his manuscripts as soon as his books were published and that he didn't keep letters—and that he urged his correspondents not to do so, either. And we all believed him because it was just the sort of thing the old curmudgeon would do.
So he didn't burn them but he left instructions for Barbara Mobbs, his literary executor, to do so, which she ignored. And now she's placed them in the National Library, to be combed through and poured over by generations of future students of Patrick White.
It's not surprising that public figures, or their relatives, would want to massage the public record by restricting access to private papers but it certainly makes for a challenge to biographers.
We're joined today by two guests who have faced this challenge. David Marr is Patrick White's biographer—he's coming to terms with the existence of these new papers, which Patrick assured him did not exist.
And Hazel Rowley, biographer of Christina Stead, as well as of the American writer Richard Wright and the dynamic French duo, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
Guests
David Marr
Patrick White biographer
Hazel Rowley
biographer
Publications
Title: Patrick White: A Life
Author: David Marr
Publisher: Random House
Title: Barwick
Author: David Marr
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Title: Patrick White's Letters
Author: Collected by David Marr
Publisher: Random House
Title: Christina Stead
Author: Hazel Rowley
Publisher: Reed Books
Title: Richard Wright: The Life and Times
Author: Hazel Rowley
Publisher: Henry Holt
Title: Tete a Tete: The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre
Author: Hazel Rowley
Publisher: Chatto and Windus
Presenter
Ramona Koval
Producer
Rhiannon Brown
