Australian Literature Month on Reading Matters

Here’s a guest post by Elizabeth Lhuede on the Reading Matters blog on Australian Women Writers. It’s gratifying to be mentioned in the company of so many other wonderful writers. This story of Lhuede’s is astonishing though…

‘I assumed it would be easy to find books to read, but when I asked my local library staff for recommendations, I was stunned that neither of the two (female) library assistants on duty could name one living female Australian author. The author they did name, Elizabeth Jolley, was one of the few I’d read as an undergraduate. Other authors I knew were all either dead, of an older generation, or expatriates, many of whom had achieved recognition for their work outside Australia, including Shirley Hazzard, Helen Garner, Kate Grenville, Thea Astley and Janette Turner Hospital.

Where were the books by authors of my own generation and younger?’