 First edition | |
| Author | Eve Langley |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Publisher | Angus and Robertson |
Publication date | 1954 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 250 pp |
| Preceded by | The Pea-Pickers |
| Followed by | – |
White Topee (1954) is a novel by Australian writer Eve Langley. [1]
The novel is set in Gippsland, Victoria, which is depicted as an idyllic place with peoples from many nations working on the land in harmony. The novel is a sequel of sorts to the author's earlier book The Pea-Pickers , and features the same characters two years later.
Peter Harding, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, found the novel "is, more than anything else, a poem. Plain prose and formal verse intersperse many of its 250 pages, but much of it is a poem disguised as prose. The poem is about Australia and Italians, and about a poet's ecstatic, anguished memories of youth in Gippsland and probably somewhere in northern Australia. And in reading it one is in the presence of something great amid a rambling eccentricity." [2]
Peggy Wright was impressed with the novel in The News (Adelaide): "It is impossible to be lukewarm about Eve Langley. Either you lap up her strikingly original prose, or you wonder what the heck she's writing about. Personally, I can take all Eve Langley likes to write, and come back for more...The book is packed with lively characters music-loving Italians, and casual Australians, university graduates and laborers. Every page is rich with a sincere, almost passionate love of Australia." [3]
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Thea Beatrice May Astley was an Australian novelist and short story writer. She was a prolific writer who was published for over 40 years from 1958. At the time of her death, she had won more Miles Franklin Awards, Australia's major literary award, than any other writer. As well as being a writer, she taught at all levels of education – primary, secondary and tertiary.
Zora Bernice May Cross was an Australian poet, best-selling novelist and journalist.
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Kathleen Kylie Tennant AO was an Australian novelist, playwright, short-story writer, critic, biographer, and historian.
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Leslie Allan Murray was an Australian poet, anthologist, and critic. His career spanned over 40 years and he published nearly 30 volumes of poetry as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings.
Eve Langley, born Ethel Jane Langley, was an Australian-New Zealand novelist and poet. Her novels belong to a tradition of Australian women's writing that explores the conflict between being an artist and being a woman.
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Jennifer Maiden is an Australian poet. She was born in Penrith, New South Wales, and has had 36 books published: 28 poetry collections, 6 novels and 2 nonfiction works. Her current publishers are Quemar Press in Australia and Bloodaxe Books in the UK. She began writing professionally in the late 1960s and has been active in Sydney's literary scene since then. She took a BA at Macquarie University in the early 1970s. She has one daughter, Katharine Margot Toohey. Aside from writing, Jennifer Maiden runs writers workshops with a variety of literary, community and educational organizations and has devised and co-written a manual of questions to facilitate writing by Torture and Trauma Victims. Later, Maiden and Bennett used the questions they had created as a basis for a clinically planned workbook.
Philip Salom is an Australian poet and novelist, whose poetry books have drawn widespread acclaim. His 14 collections of poetry and four novels are noted for their originality and expansiveness and surprising differences from title to title. His poetry has won awards in Australia and the UK. His novel Waiting was shortlisted for Australia's prestigious 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the 2017 Prime Minister's Literary Awards and the 2016 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. His well-reviewed novel The Returns (2019) was a finalist in the 2020 Miles Franklin Award. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he published The Fifth Season. Since then, he has published Sweeney and the Bicycles (2022).
The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the Australian Literature Society, then from 1983 by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, when the two organisations were merged.
Alexis Wright is a Waanyi writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria and the 2018 Stella Prize for her "collective memoir" of Leigh Bruce "Tracker" Tilmouth.
The Pea-Pickers is a novel by the Australian writer Eve Langley, first published in 1942. It is a first person, semi-autobiographical narrative about two sisters who travel in the 1920s to Gippsland, and other rural areas, to work as agricultural labourers. It shared the 1940 S. H. Prior Memorial Prize with Kylie Tennant's The Battlers.
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Lesley Lebkowicz is an Australian poet.
This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1954.
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