Helen Garner has received much praise, many awards and plenty of brickbats during a writing career that started with, her groundbreaking 1977 novel chronicling life in the grungy share houses of inner Melbourne.
‘‘It’s horrible, but you learn a lot about it and you learn how to conduct yourself in a hostile environment. And you learn to keep your temper. And you also learn to turn a colder eye on your own work and see if it is as terrible as people are claiming that it is.’’What has never been in doubt is Garner’s significance in the Australian literary landscape.
The announcement of the award also saw Erica Wagner named as the recipient of the Pixie O’Harris Award for contribution to children’s literature, and the release of the shortlist for the Australian Book Industry Awards, which will be presented in a virtual ceremony on May 13. Among the shortlisted authors is Tara June Winch for her novelAlthough Garner said she was delighted to be receiving the award, she played down the idea that she was a pioneer.
She has recently been reading about four other Australian women writers who wrote in the late-19th and first half of the 20th centuries, the subjects of acclaimed biographer Brenda Niall’s latest book,‘‘When I was first starting out there were still people here who would think it was almost not worth publishing a book if it was not first published in London. I used to think that was awful: ‘I’m never going to cut it out here’.
Good for her.