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Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

~ The life of Katharine Susannah Prichard, the art of biography, and other things

Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

Category Archives: Katharine Susannah Prichard

The Colours of Katharine: a special event

16 Monday Sep 2019

Posted by Nathan Hobby in Katharine Susannah Prichard, news and events

≈ 3 Comments

1969 screen cap

It’s the fiftieth anniversary of Katharine Susannah Prichard’s death on 2 October 2019. The KSP Writers’ Centre is commemorating with some special events. Louise Helfgott has written a play about the friendship between her brother, David, and Katharine, and it’s being performed a number of times over the week. One of the performances is on Sunday 6 October as part of a full day program, “The Colours of Katharine: Red Witch or Lavender Lady?” at Katharine’s old house in Greenmount.

I’ll be giving a speech at 10:10am:

10.10 AM    Katharine Susannah Until the End: KSP in 1969. Special guest talk by Nathan Hobby.

Katharine Susannah Prichard had begun to seem frailly invincible by 1969, the year she died. Having survived a stroke and published a novel in her eighties, she was still writing, still hosting visitors from around the world, and still keeping up her keen interest in world affairs. In this talk, her biographer Nathan Hobby traces the final stage of Katharine’s life through her weekly letters to her son, Ric, giving a picture of her daily life at 11 Old York Road Greenmount, as well as reflecting on the meaning of death for a biographer.

After that, Katharine’s granddaughter, Karen Throssell, will be launching the commemorative anthology from the competition earlier this year. I selected the fiction and non-fiction pieces and there’s some great work in it, adding up to a fascinating mosaic of Katharine, Hugo Throssell, and the mythology around them.

I’m also looking forward to a talk by Dylan Hyde about his new book:

12.30 PM    Book talk with Dylan Hyde: Art Was Their Weapon: the History of the Perth Workers’ Art Guild (Fremantle Press, 2019)

The Workers’ Art Guild was a radical cultural and political force in Perth in the 1930s and 1940s, embracing new ideas in a provincial, isolated city. The Guild’s innovative approaches to theatre and art were praised by critics, but its left-wing politics, influenced by the Communist Party of Australia, were denounced by many. Police and intelligence officers kept close tabs on the Guild, censoring its activities and intimidating and jailing its members in the lead-up to World War II.

​Through the lives of its key players, such as writer Katharine Susannah Prichard and theatre maverick Keith George, Art Was Their Weapon illuminates a fascinating era in Western Australian history.

The full program is here. I’m thrilled KSP Writers’ Centre has gone to such lengths to mark the occasion; for anyone interested in Katharine Susannah Prichard, it will be fascinating.

Katharine Susannah Prichard Underground: Ten Weeks in Kalgoorlie, 1941

30 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by Nathan Hobby in academic, Katharine Susannah Prichard

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

ASIO, Goldfields Trilogy, Kalgoorlie

Katharine in 1941
Katharine in 1941
Doon (Winifred) Stone (also Tombs and Doyle)
Doon (Winifred) Stone (also Tombs and Doyle)
Letter to the Commonwealth Literary Fund, held by National Archives
Letter to the Commonwealth Literary Fund, held by National Archives

This is a paper I presented at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature conference in Perth, July 2019. The conference theme was ‘dirt’.

Literature and politics were always interacting in the life and work of Katharine Susannah Prichard. The clash and confluence of the two are both apparent in her ten week research trip to the gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie in 1941. The tensions in this moment in Australian history are suggested by the fact that much of our knowledge of Prichard’s trip is thanks to the files kept by two government agencies—one, the Commonwealth Literary Fund which was giving her money; and the other, the intelligence service which was surveilling her. The trip encompassed two forms of dirt—the ‘dirt’ of a mining industry and the ‘dirt file’ being kept on Prichard as a dangerous radical. Continue reading →

Year five of my quest for Katharine Susannah Prichard

21 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by Nathan Hobby in academic, autobiographical, My KSP biography, news and events

≈ 22 Comments

IMG_3926

You can’t really see it, but I’m holding a copy of my thesis and the “PhinisheD” mug on the day of my submission. Of course, I’m not really finished  – not even the thesis, which will probably come back with corrections after examination!

It’s five years today since I officially started my biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard. This is starting to be a long time. The decade was young when I began and now it’s finishing. In fact, I was beginning just at the start of the centenary of the Great War, and I submitted my PhD thesis on Katharine’s early life in late June, just before the centenary of Armistice. My thesis lasted the length of the Great War; the whole biography – extending the story to the end of her life – will take somewhat longer. Continue reading →

Katharine Susannah Prichard and David Helfgott: fundraiser this Friday

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by Nathan Hobby in Katharine Susannah Prichard, news and events

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

David Helfgott, KSP Writers' Centre

In March 1966, Katharine Susannah Prichard wrote to her son, ‘I had a wonderful night this week. My young friend, David Helfgott came to dinner – and played to me all the evening… To have so much glorious music – Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Liszt all to myself. It was almost too much. I felt quite drunk with it. But the young man himself is so modest & simple, although well informed about literature & art – discusses with me all the questions of political importance in our time.’ Continue reading →

Katharine and Hugo’s wedding, 100 years ago today!

28 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by Nathan Hobby in Katharine Susannah Prichard, link

≈ 5 Comments

On 28 January 1919, the day the Spanish Flu hit Melbourne, Katharine Susannah Prichard and Hugo Throssell were marred in the registry office. Coincidentally, on 28 January 2006, Nicole and I were married at Claremont Baptist Church. I wrote about it for the KSP Writers’ Centre here.

Gold and Wildflowers

26 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by Nathan Hobby in My KSP biography

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Goldfields Trilogy, Kalgoorlie

wildflowers

I had a good research day yesterday, after several grey ones.  This month I’ve jumped forward in my biography from 1933 (leaving Katharine’s trip to the Soviet Union unfinished) to 1941. The Association for the Study of Australian Literature conference is in Perth in July and I’ve been working on a paper to fit the theme of “Dirt” – “Katharine Susannah Prichard Underground: Ten Weeks in Kalgoorlie, 1941”. I finally submitted the abstract yesterday: Continue reading →

Link to my radio interview

01 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by Nathan Hobby in links, My KSP biography

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

interview, media

Had an epic conversation about Katharine Prichard with Riley Buchanan on Radio Fremantle yesterday. (May never again encounter such an astute, well-prepared interviewer!) You can listen here until Friday; talking starts at 14 min: http://203.59.4.85:8001/shows_this_week/fri-11_00.mp3

100 years since Katharine’s engagement

29 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by Nathan Hobby in Katharine Susannah Prichard, links

≈ 2 Comments

Katharine Susannah Prichard and Hugo Throssell were engaged one hundred years ago at the end of World War One. I wrote about their whirlwind courtship in a column for the KSP Writers’ Centre here. Also, December’s column features a piece of my biography I’ve cut – Katharine’s obsession with lavender in London; you can read it here.

I’m talking about Katharine Susannah on Radio Fremantle

29 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by Nathan Hobby in Katharine Susannah Prichard, music, news and events

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

radio

I’m going to be on the wireless tomorrow! I’ll be talking about Katharine Susannah Prichard on the program Out of the Woodwork with Riley Buchanan, Radio Fremantle (107.9 FM in Perth metro area), Friday 30 November, from 11am AWST, between songs.  It’s streamed online and I’ll post a link to the MP3 when it’s available. Continue reading →

Katharine Susannah Prichard commemorative competition

23 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by Nathan Hobby in Katharine Susannah Prichard, news and events

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

KSP Writers' Centre

KSP-window-from-100-years-of-Bridges

Katharine Susannah Prichard looking out from her workroom. From This Australia 1985, date of photograph ca. 1930s.

Next October will be the fiftieth anniversary of Katharine Susannah Prichard’s death. To mark the occasion, KSP Writers Centre (which meets in her house) is holding a literary competition. Entries are open to all Australian residents and citizens until 22 February in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The best entries will appear in an anthology to be launched in October. It is a themed competition, with entries needing a connection to Katharine, her work, or her house. I will be judging the non-fiction and fiction sections. I encourage you to enter!

http://www.kspwriterscentre.com/ksp-commemoration-competition

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