Gwen Nita Smith 28 July 1922 Thornleigh, New South Wales
Died
August 19, 2012(2012-08-19) (aged 90)
Nationality
Australian
Alma mater
University of Sydney
Genre
Novels
Notable works
Always Afternoon
Spouse
Maurice Nugent Kelly
Gwen Kelly (28 July 1922 – 19 August 2012) was an award-winning Australian novelist, short story writer and poet, whose fourth novel, Always Afternoon, was made into a television mini-series in 1988. She was considered by some to be one of the "major Australian writers",[1] whose novels are "an intimate chronicling of women's lives and of our yesterdays",[2] "probing stereotypical Australian attitudes and behaviour".[3]
Early life
Gwen Nita Smith was born in
Thornleigh, near
Sydney, New South Wales, on 28 July 1922, the fourth of five daughters to accountant George Rupert Smith and his wife, Mary Ann (née Heath), who died when Gwen was just nine years old.[4][5][6] She began writing early, and during her teenage years her poetry was published in the children's pages of newspapers and magazines.[7][8] She attended
Fort Street Girls High,[9] and was awarded a scholarship to the
University of Sydney in 1940.[10] There she studied English and Philosophy, graduating in 1944 with first-class honours and the University Medal in English.[11][12] One of her teachers was the Challis Professor of Philosophy (1927–58)
John Anderson, a promoter of free thought in morality and politics and advocate of academic freedom.[11][13] During her time at university, she experienced a "conversion" from the Baptist faith she had been brought up in, to atheism or agnosticism.[14] In 1945, she married Classics scholar Maurice Nugent Kelly (1919–2011).[11][12]
Career
In the late 1940s, Gwen Kelly lectured briefly in philosophy at the University of Sydney and the
University of New England.[6][11][12] She continued to write, using the pen name Nita Heath,[11][12][15] with short stories published in women's magazines[16][17] and read on radio.[18][19]
In 1954, Maurice Kelly was appointed to the University of New England, and he, Gwen and their young daughters Bronwyn and Jillian moved to
Armidale.[6][11] In 1960 and 1961, the family lived in Quebec, Canada, while Maurice completed his PhD at Laval University. Gwen Kelly's first novel, There Is No Refuge was published by
Heinemann in 1961;[20][21] it portrays the life of a young Sydney woman through the
Great Depression and
WWII, and her religious and moral challenges while at university.[22][23] A UK reviewer considered her "an author with a future", but felt it necessary to mention that the outback, kangaroos and goannas did not feature at all in the novel.[24] Canada provided the landscape for her second novel The Red Boat (1968),[11] which "explores the extent to which a breakdown in childhood filial relationships can damage emotional development and well-being into adult life".[25]
After returning to Armidale, Gwen was appointed Lecturer in English and Philosophy at the
Armidale Teachers' College in 1964, and remained at the college until her retirement in the early 1980s.[6] With a colleague, she wrote What is Right? Case Studies in the Ethics of Education (1970), in which "[t]rue conflicts between child and teacher are analysed by the authors ..... Conflicts that question the ethics of education; that dispute the teacher's powers in and out of class; that take into account the child's family background and personal behavior."[26] She also wrote two guides to the writings of Henry Lawson (both in 1975), and continued to publish short stories in literary journals including The Literary Review, Southerly, Quadrant and Meanjin. In 1968 she won her first Henry Lawson Prose Award for her short story 'Day at Paffts'.[27]
Her third novel, The Middle-Aged Maidens, published in 1976, is set in a private girls' school in a small town, and is narrated by one of the schoolteachers and three successive headmistresses.[28] It has been described as a "fierce appraisal of small-town shortcomings ... [an] acerbic depiction of a private school for girls in Armidale."[29]: 111 Reviewers appreciated that "the headmistresses' characters are sketched with sharp and brilliant lines ...... Gwen Kelly draws from us that complexity of response which is normal in life, rare in literature";[30] and described the novel as "spiteful, malicious, cunning, intensely readable ..... Delicious, Ms Kelly .... you know your Australia and you've a lovely way with words".[31]
Also in 1976, her short story 'Country Show' was adapted for screen as a short film called Showtime, directed by
Jan Chapman, produced by
Sandra Levy, written by Margaret Kelly, with cinematography by Jan Kenny, and starring
Jude Kuring and
Lorna Lesley.[32][33][34] Director Jan Chapman remembered that Showtime, "about the school system’s reaction to an affair between two women teachers", was shown at the
Sydney Filmmakers Co-op cinema as part of a program about life in school, including Jane Oehr’s Stirring (1974) .... [and]
Ken Cameron’s first film Sailing To Brooklyn (1974)".[35]
Always Afternoon (1981) is perhaps Gwen Kelly's best-known work. Set during the years 1915-18, it concerns the lives of those in the small northern NSW town of
Arakoon, where German nationals and Australian-born descendants of German migrants were interned in
Trial Bay Gaol as enemy aliens. In Kelly's novel, a young local woman, Freda Kennon, falls in love with Franz, one of the internees who is a violinist. While some critics described the romance as a "vapid Romeo-and-Juliet scenario",[29] other reviewers commented that "Kelly depicts very well Freda's adolescence and the conflict between her love and her puritanical upbringing. She is also successful in evoking the claustrophobic atmosphere in a small country town where life is "always afternoon",[36] and "Kelly is good at creating the feeling of life within the jail walls ... [and] depicts the growing hatred in the district, growing to dangerous proportions" as local families are affected by the deaths and injuries suffered by their menfolk away fighting in the war.[37][3]Always Afternoon was made into a TV mini-series in 1988[38] by
SBS TV in cooperation with German network
NDR, with actors from Australia, Germany and the UK.[39][40] In a decade in which Australian male soldiers' experiences of WWI were notably explored in film (eg Gallipoli, Breaker Morant, The Lighthorsemen) and TV series (eg ANZACs), Always Afternoon provided a very different perspective, focusing on the home front and the experiences of civilians, particularly women,[29] and those who had thought they were civilians but suddenly became aliens. Kelly's novel has also been the subject of analysis by several academics exploring responses to WWI in Australian literature.[41][42][43]
Arrows of Rain (1988) was her fifth novel, "covering forty years in the life of the Drayton family beginning with the opening of the Sydney Harbour bridge and closing with the advent of the Whitlam government." During this time, "the two Drayton daughters have gone from decade to decade uncharitably playing favourites, unfairly claiming privileges and unpityingly scoring points against each other."[1]
The following year, Kelly was awarded her second Society of Women Writers Hilarie Lindsay Award for achievement by a woman writer. Her work has been translated in Switzerland, East Germany[44] and Indonesia. She was a generous supporter of the
New England Writers Centre, and assisted many aspiring or mid-career writers.[11]
1981 - Society of Women Writers (NSW) Hilarie Lindsay Award for achievement by a woman writer[27][11]
1989 - Society of Women Writers Hilarie Lindsay Award for achievement by a woman writer[11]
References
^
abBarr, Todd; Sullivan, Rodney J. (Rodney John), 1943- (2005), Words to walk by : exploring literary Brisbane, University of Queensland Press,
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^Ryan, J. S. (John Sprott); University of New England. Heritage Futures Research Centre (2008), Tales from New England (1st ed.), Heritage Futures Research Centre ; Lane Cove, N.S.W. : Woodbine Press,
ISBN978-0-949557-22-3
^Blain, Virginia; Blain, Virginia, 1945-; Grundy, Isobel; Clements, Patricia (1990), The feminist companion to literature in English: women writers from the Middle Ages to the present, B.T. Batsford,
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^"Country Town". The Sun. No. 1689. New South Wales, Australia. 11 August 1935. p. 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO THE SUNDAY SUN AND GUARDIAN SUNBEAMS). Retrieved 8 October 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
^"WINTER". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 31, 670. New South Wales, Australia. 3 July 1939. p. 23 (Women's Supplement). Retrieved 8 October 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
^
abcdefghijklmNew England Writers' Centre (December 2012 – February 2013).
"Goodbye Gwen"(PDF). New England Writers' Centre. pp. 2–4. Archived from
the original(PDF) on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
^Smith, R. D., et al. "Shorter Notices." The Times Literary Supplement, 9 June 1961, p. 361. The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive,
http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/7CNGK8. Accessed 8 Oct. 2018.
^Fane, Vernon (10 June 1961).
"Books". The Sphere. 245 (3184): 420–421.
^Bennett, Anthony J. (1988) 'Introduction', in Kelly, Gwen; Bennett, A. J. (Anthony J.) (1988), The happy people and others, Kardoorair Press,
ISBN978-0-908244-13-3
^
abcGelder, Ken; Salzman, Paul (1989). The New Diversity. Australian Fiction 1970-88. Melbourne, Australia: McPhee Gribble.
ISBN086914068X.
^"HERMITS AND MISTRESSES". The Canberra Times. Vol. 51, no. 14, 566. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 24 December 1976. p. 8. Retrieved 8 October 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
^Levy, Sandra. (Producer); Chapman, Janine. (Director); Lesley, Lorna. (Actor); Kelly, M. (Margaret) (Writer of accompanying material); Kenny, Jan. (Photographer); Kuring, Jude. (Actor); Kelly, Gwen, 1922-. Country show (1978),
Showtime, Made [by] Sandra Levy [and] Jan Chapman with the assistance of the Creative Development Branch of the Australian Film Commission, retrieved 10 October 2018{{
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^"The Story". Filmnews. Vol. 8, no. 6. New South Wales, Australia. 1 June 1978. p. 11. Retrieved 10 October 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Reel women in Meboume". Filmnews. Vol. 8, no. 12. New South Wales, Australia. 1 December 1978. p. 10. Retrieved 10 October 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Pym, pricking pretension". The Canberra Times. Vol. 62, no. 19, 221. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 22 May 1988. p. 8. Retrieved 10 October 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
^"HATREDS EXPOSED". The Canberra Times. Vol. 55, no. 16, 773. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 29 August 1981. p. 15. Retrieved 8 October 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
^"The Canberra Times". The Canberra Times. Vol. 62, no. 19, 146. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 7 March 1988. p. 27. Retrieved 10 October 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
^Spittel, Christina. 'Nostalgia for the Nation? The First World War in Australian Novels of the 1970s and 1980s'. In Löschnigg, Martin; Sokolowska-Paryz, Marzena (2014), The Great War in post-memory literature and film, Berlin Boston De Gruyter,
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^Coates, Donna (22 September 2002), "Sleeping with the enemy: patriot games in fictions by Lesbia Harford, Gwen Kelly, and Joan Dugdale", The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 37 (2): 157–173,
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^Coates D. (2001) 'Myrmidons to Insubordinates: Australian, New Zealand and Canadian Women’s Fictional Responses to the Great War.' In: Quinn P.J., Trout S. (eds) The Literature of the Great War Reconsidered. Palgrave Macmillan, London
^Spittel, Christina (2016) ' 'To do something for Australian literature': Anthologizing Australia for the German Democratic Republic of the 1970s', in Moore, Nicole, 1969; Spittel, Christina (2016), Australian literature in the German Democratic Republic : reading through the Iron Curtain, Anthem Press,
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^Daniel, Helen (6 August 1988).
"Realism in all its glory". The Sydney Morning Herald: 76. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
^Kelly, Gwen. Portrait of a New Community: A Personal Impression [online]. Meanjin, Vol. 16, No. 4, Summer 1957: 399-407.
ISSN1324-1745.] [cited 13 Oct 18].
^Pickett, Charles; Powerhouse Museum (1997), The fibro frontier : a different history of Australian architecture, Powerhouse Publishing,
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^Harris, R. (2000), To Market! To Market! The Changing Role of the Australian Timber Merchant, 1945–c.1965. Australian Economic History Review, 40: 22-50. doi:10.1111/1467-8446.00054
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abcLindsay, Hilarie, 1922-; Grenfell Henry Lawson Festival (1981), Echoes of Henry Lawson, Ansay : distributed by A.L. Lindsay & Co,
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