Author | Chris Womersley |
---|---|
Country | Australia |
Language | English |
Publisher | Scribe |
Publication date | 2013 |
Pages | 304 |
ISBN | 9781925106626 |
OCLC | 850395771 |
Cairo is a 2013 novel by Australian author Chris Womersley. [1] It is Womersley's third novel. [2]
The novel takes its name from Cairo Flats, a heritage-listed apartment building in Fitzroy, Victoria. [1] [3]
The novel is presented as a reminiscence of "Tom Button", a boy from rural Victoria who inherits an apartment in Fitzroy from a bohemian aunt. Tom is accepted into a circle of artists and musicians, centred around Max and Sally Cheever, a couple who live in unit 28 of the Cairo Flats. [1] Tom is drawn into a circle that would perpetrate the Theft of The Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria and would sell it to relocate to France. [1]
The novel includes a number of actual places and venues on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy and in the suburb: Punters Club, the Black Cat cafe, Polyester Records and Rhumbarellas. [4]
The Brisbane Lions are a professional Australian rules football club based in Brisbane, Queensland, that compete in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition.
Victoria University of Wellington is a public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand.
An apartment, flat, or unit is a self-contained housing unit that occupies part of a building, generally on a single storey. There are many names for these overall buildings. The housing tenure of apartments also varies considerably, from large-scale public housing, to owner occupancy within what is legally a condominium, to tenants renting from a private landlord.
Cairo is the capital city of Egypt.
St Kilda is an inner seaside suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km south-east of the Melbourne central business district, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. St Kilda recorded a population of 19,490 at the 2021 census.
Trellick Tower is a Grade II* listed tower block on the Cheltenham Estate in North Kensington, London. Opened in 1972, it was commissioned by the Greater London Council and designed in the Brutalist style by architect Ernő Goldfinger. The tower was planned to replace outdated social accommodation, and designed as an improvement on Goldfinger's earlier Balfron Tower in East London. It was the last major project he worked on, and featured various space-saving designs, along with a separate access tower containing a plant room.
Collingwood is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3km north-east of the Melbourne central business district, located within the City of Yarra local government area. Collingwood recorded a population of 9,179 at the 2021 census.
Fitzroy is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km (1.9 mi) north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Yarra local government area. Fitzroy recorded a population of 10,431 at the 2021 census.
East Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2 km (1.2 mi) east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne local government area. East Melbourne recorded a population of 4,896 at the 2021 census.
The Special Operations Group (SOG) is the police tactical group of the Victoria Police. The SOG was Australia's first full time and dedicated police tactical group when it formed in 1977.
The Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), in Fitzroy, Melbourne, Victoria, is a venue for the exhibition of contemporary photo-based arts, providing a context for the enjoyment, education, understanding and appraisal of contemporary practice.
Rockhampton City is the central suburb of the city of Rockhampton in the Rockhampton Region, Queensland, Australia. It is informally known as Rockhampton central business district (CBD). In the 2021 census, Rockhampton City had a population of 2,059 people.
The Housing Commission of Victoria was a Government of Victoria body responsible for public housing in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1938, and was abolished in 1984.
Chris Womersley is an Australian author of crime fiction, short stories and poetry. He trained as a radio journalist and has travelled extensively to such places as India, South-East Asia, South America, North America, and West Africa. He lives in Melbourne.
Fitzroy Street is the major thoroughfare of the beachside Melbourne suburb of St Kilda. Its fortunes have risen and fallen along with that of St Kilda itself, from wealthy residential district to a popular working and middle class beachside entertainment district, to cheap and seedy, and popular again in the late 20th century. In recent years Fitzroy Street itself has gone from a popular restaurant strip to the situation in 2017 where only a few restaurants remain amongst kebab shops and convenience stores catering the backpackers and many empty shopfronts. It is named after Charles Augustus FitzRoy, Governor of New South Wales in 1842 when St Kilda was first subdivided.
Attack the Block is a 2011 British science fiction comedy horror film written and directed by Joe Cornish and starring John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, and Nick Frost. Its storyline centres on a teenage street gang who have to defend themselves from predatory alien invaders on a council estate in South London on Guy Fawkes Night. It was the film debut of Cornish, Boyega, and composer Steven Price.
The theft of The Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria took place on 2 August 1986 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The stolen work was one of a series of paintings by Pablo Picasso all known as The Weeping Woman and had been purchased by the gallery for A$1.6 million in 1985—at the time the highest price paid by an Australian art gallery for an artwork. A group calling itself "Australian Cultural Terrorists" claimed responsibility, making a number of demands in letters to the then-Victorian Minister for the Arts, Race Mathews. The demands included increases to funding for the arts; threats were made that the painting would be destroyed. After an anonymous tip-off to police, the painting was found undamaged in a locker at Spencer Street railway station on 19 August 1986. The theft still remains unsolved.
Melissa Hickey is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Melbourne Football Club and the Geelong Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW). She served as Geelong captain in the club's first two AFL Women's seasons. She also played in the Victorian Women's Football League/VFL Women's for eleven seasons, representing the St Albans Spurs, Darebin and Geelong. In the VWFL/VFLW, Hickey won seven premierships, represented Victoria on three occasions and featured in the VFL Women's team of the year.
Cairo Flats is a heritage-listed apartment building in the Melbourne inner city suburb of Fitzroy. The building was designed in 1935 by architect Acheson Best Overend and built in 1936.