Jean Devanny: Romantic Revolutionary Book

Jean Devanny - author, political activist and women's liberationist - was a leading figure in Australia's political and literary life. Yet this biography is the first full account of her life and times." "Devanny arrived in Sydney in 1929 from New Zealand, already a writer of some notoriety (her first novel, The Butcher Shop, had been banned there). In the turbulent political climate of the 1930s she joined the Communist Party and rapidly became a redoubtable public speaker." "A series of extraordinary conflicts and controversies played themselves out through and around Jean's intrepid figure. She clashed periodically with the party line under Stalin, and her open marriage and rumoured love affairs led to many complications. She was close to such writers as Katharine Susannah Prichard, Miles Franklin, Frank Hardy and Jack Beasley, debating with them over the balance between activism and writing, and over the conflict between socialist realism and complicated - or marketable - fiction. Interested in issues of race, gender and sexuality as well as class, she was decades ahead of her time in her thinking on these questions. This makes her a writer of continuing contemporary interest." "Carole Ferrier's biography uses oral history material from people who knew Devanny, as well as drawing extensively on unpublished archives and manuscripts. Ferrier uses many voices to tell Devanny's story, placing them in juxtaposition with each other to produce a rich and fascinating narrative.