Alex Miller (writer)

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Alex Miller
Alex Miller at Vassar College 2013.jpg
Alex Miller at Vassar College, New York, 2013
BornAlexander McPhee Miller
(1936-12-27) 27 December 1936 (age 87)
London, England
OccupationNovelist
NationalityAustralian
Period1975–present
GenreLiterary fiction
Notable works The Ancestor Game ,
Journey to the Stone Country ,
Lovesong
Notable awards Miles Franklin Award
1993, 2003

Alexander McPhee Miller (born 27 December 1936) is an Australian novelist. [1] Miller is twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award, in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country . [2] He won the overall award for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for The Ancestor Game in 1993. He is twice winner of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Conditions of Faith in 2001 and for Lovesong in 2011. In recognition of his impressive body of work and in particular for his novel Autumn Laing he was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Literature in 2012. [3]

Contents

Life

Alex Miller was born in London to a Scottish father and Irish mother. [1] After working as a farm labourer in Somerset he migrated alone to Australia at the age of 16. [4] He worked as a ringer in Queensland and as a horse breaker in New Zealand before studying at night school to gain university entrance. [5] Miller graduated from the University of Melbourne in English and History in 1965. [1] In 1975 he published his first short story, 'Comrade Pawel' in Meanjin Quarterly . [6] In 1980 he was a co-founder of the Anthill Theatre and a founding member of the Melbourne Writers' Theatre. [7] Miller taught writing courses at Holmesglen TAFE and La Trobe University between 1986 and 1997. [1] Miller has written full-time since 1998. In this time he has written nine of his thirteen published novels and his non-fiction, Max. His work has received wide critical acclaim. [1]

Alex Miller lives in country Victoria with his wife Stephanie. [1] The Ancestor Game was re-published by Allen & Unwin in 2016 as a celebratory edition to mark 25 years since its publication and to honour the author on his 80th birthday. [8]

Writing

Miller's first novel, Watching the Climbers on the Mountain, was published in 1988 and republished by Allen & Unwin in 2012. [9] Major national and international recognition came with the publication of The Ancestor Game, his third novel and the winner of both the Miles Franklin Award and overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1993. Since then Miller has published on average a major novel every two years, his tenth being Autumn Laing published in 2011. [10] The Melbourne critic Peter Craven, writing in The Australian on 14 July 2012, describes Autumn Laing as "superb" and says of it, "it is the novel that is liable to burn brightest in the whole of his oeuvre." Professor Brenda Walker suggests that 'Alex Miller may be Australia's greatest living writer'. [11]

Robert Dixon, Professor of Australian Literature at Sydney University writes that Miller's 'novels are by and large accessible to the general reading public yet manifestly of high literary seriousness - substantial, technically masterly and assured, intricately interconnected, and of great imaginative, intellectual and ethical weight'. The Novels of Alex Miller, [12] edited and with an introduction by Robert Dixon was published in 2012 following a two-day Symposium at the University of Sydney in 2011 as a major critical study devoted to Miller’s works. [13] In 2014 Robert Dixon published the first sole-authored critical survey of the respected author's eleven novels. Robert Dixon's Alex Miller: the ruin of time is the first of the Sydney Studies in Australian Literature series

Miller's novel Autumn Laing was inspired by his lifelong interest in art and is loosely based on the relationship between Sidney Nolan and Sunday Reed. [14]

Coal Creek , published in 2013 by Allen & Unwin won the 2014 Victorian Premier's Literary Award. [15]

In 2015 Alex Miller published a collection of short stories and essays drawn from forty years of writing, The Simplest Words A Storyteller's Journey. Peter Pierce describes this collection as 'a rich, generous compilation that enticingly refracts our perceptions of one of Australia's finest novelists'. [16]

The Passage of Love , published by Allen & Unwin in 2017, was described by Michael Cathcart, when interviewing Alex Miller on ABC Radio, as 'The most candid, sharing, generous book I've read in a long, long time.' [17]

Max is a work of non-fiction which tells of Alex Miller's friendship with his mentor, Max Blatt, and his search to understand Max's life. The book was published by Allen & Unwin in 2020. [18] Writing in The Age/Sydney Morning Herald, Michael McGirr says ' Max is haunted by devastating insights. Blatt told Miller that the hardest part of torture was the realisation that the torturer was also your brother. It is the same generosity that makes Max such a compelling argument against narrowness and division. Blatt’s life has deep and wide ramifications. Miller’s intelligent love has created a tale for the ages.' [19]

A Brief Affair , published by Allen & Unwin in 2022, is Alex Miller's most recent novel. .

Awards

Miller is a recipient of the Centenary Medal, [23] and in 2008 the Manning Clark Medal for "An outstanding contribution to Australian cultural life." [24] Miller is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. [25]

Bibliography

Novels

Collections

Non-Fiction

Major short essays and short stories

Drama

Reviews

Interviews

Critical works on Alex Miller

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Dixon, R, (Ed), 2012, 'The Novels of Alex Miller, An Introduction', Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
  2. ↑ "Archived item". Archived from the original on 10 May 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
  3. ↑ "Melbourne Prize Trust » Literature".
  4. ↑ Miller, A, 'Once Upon A Life', The Observer, Magazine, 26 Sept, 2010, pp 12-13
  5. ↑ Miller, A, On Writing 'Landscape of Farewell'.
  6. ↑ "Archived item". Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
  7. ↑ "Reference Number: MS 318 Guide to the Papers of Alex Miller". Academy Library, UNSW@ADFA. Archived from the original on 20 November 2008. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  8. ↑ Stephen Romei, 'Stack of Pages on the Floor Have a Story to Tell, 27 Dec 2016 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/books/alex-miller-stack-of-pages-on-the-floor-have-a-story-to-tell/news-story/b5aaf9e8c1483ec5972e3495022611ee
  9. ↑ Allen and Unwin . Retrieved November 2012
  10. ↑ "Autumn Laing". Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
  11. ↑ Walker, Brenda, 2012 in Dixon, Robert, (Ed), 2012, 'The Novels of Alex Miller, An Introduction', Allen & Unwin, Sydney, p 42.
  12. ↑ Allen and Unwin . Retrieved 30 November 2012
  13. ↑ Dixon, Robert, 2011, University of Sydney
  14. ↑ Stephens, Andrew (24 September 2011). "Leave it to Autumn", The Age. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  15. ↑ "Coal Creek". Archived from the original on 12 January 2014. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
  16. ↑ Pierce, Peter (2 December 2015). , The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
  17. 1 2 Michael Cathcart, (14 November 2017). Books and Arts, ABC Radio National
  18. ↑ "Allen & Unwin - Australia".
  19. ↑ Michael McGirr, (16 December 2020). , The Sydney Morning Herald.
  20. 1 2 "Shortlists". 5 August 2016.
  21. ↑ Jason Steger (28 January 2014). "Liquid Nitrogen poet Jennifer Maiden wins Australia's richest literature prize". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  22. ↑ "Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2024 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 15 August 2024. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  23. ↑ "It's an Honour - Honours - Awards - A-Z of Awards - Centenary Medal". Archived from the original on 3 February 2008. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
  24. ↑ The Manning Clark Prize "Archived item". Archived from the original on 27 May 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2013.. Accessed November 2012.
  25. ↑ Australian Academy of the Humanities Archived 14 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine . Accessed November 2012
  26. ↑ "Singing for All He's Worth, Essays in Honour of Jacob G Rosenberg edited by Alex Skovron, Raimond Gaita, and Alex Miller". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  27. ↑ "Brenda Walker reviews 'The Simplest Words' by Alex Miller". 26 February 2016.
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