Author Description

In this moving biography, Ric Throssell, who was himself an accomplished writer, brings to life the story of his mother Katharine Susannah Prichard, drawing on his close personal relationship and his memories of her lifetime.Katharine Susannah Prichard (1883-1969) was one of Australia's most distinguished writers of the first half of the twentieth century, as well as one of its most politically engaged. A foundation member of the Western Australian branch of the Communist Party, she was also a fervent feminist, and her writing was informed by a broad-reaching socialism.Prichard published many major novels, including Working Bullocks (1926), lauded on publication as the first properly Australian modern novel, and Coonardoo (1929), which attracted some hostile criticism for its portrait of a loving sexual relationship between a young Aboriginal woman and a white man.As a public figure Prichard won acclaim, but she also suffered public abuse. She was an intensely private woman who requested that all her personal papers and letters be destroyed upon her death. This is the authoritative and intimate account of her life.