Cette auteure explore des thèmes d'aliénation, de solitude et d'enfermement à travers une voix narrative distinctive. Ses romans se concentrent souvent sur des personnages aux prises avec des environnements inhospitaliers et leurs propres paysages intérieurs. À travers ses œuvres, elle capture les complexités de la psyché humaine et la quête d'identité en territoire inconnu. Son influence s'étend à la pédagogie de l'écriture créative, inspirant une génération d'écrivains australiens.
Set in a nursing home, Mr. Scobie battles the oppressive Matron Price while striving to maintain his dignity and dreams. Through music and poetry, he seeks solace, but it is a simple riddle that holds the potential to transform the institution. The narrative explores themes of resistance and the quest for personal dignity amidst dehumanizing circumstances, drawing comparisons to the sharp satire of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
The story centers on Edwin Page, a meticulous professor whose life takes an unexpected turn when he invites his new neighbors, Mrs. Botts and her alluring daughter Leila, into his home. Following his wife Cecilia's departure for a fellowship, Edwin becomes infatuated with Leila, imagining her as an ideal surrogate for Cecilia's unfulfilled motherhood. This darkly comedic narrative explores themes of obsession and the complexities of marriage, offering a subversive take on traditional relationships.
Set against the backdrop of a summer program at Trinity College, the story follows Alma Porch, an aspiring dramatist who takes on the challenge of teaching overweight women. As she navigates a world filled with eccentric staff and students, Alma encounters a mix of indulgence and ambition, where participants seek to transform themselves through the arts. The narrative explores themes of body image, self-acceptance, and the complexities of human desires while Alma directs her play, Foxybaby.
An old cleaning lady, symbolically referred to as the newspaper, grapples with her longing for freedom from the burdens of her past and present life. This new edition revives one of the author's most beloved and unique characters, inviting readers to explore themes of escape and the weight of history.
Set in London, the story follows Miss Peabody, a lonely spinster who reaches out to Australian novelist Diana Hopewell. In response, Hopewell shares her novel about a whimsical trio of lesbian ladies and their misadventures in Europe. As Miss Peabody receives each installment, her connection to both the author and the fictional characters deepens, blurring the lines between her reality and the fantasy world. This poignant exploration of loneliness and imagination offers a delightful reading experience.
This moving masterpiece by one of Australia’s leading novelists―now in its entirety―inaugurates Persea’s series of Elizabeth Jolley revivals. Set in 1940s wartime England, the trilogy follows young Vera, who leaves her cultivated Midlands home to become a nurse in a military hospital and is catapulted into adulthood through unorthodox love entanglements with both men and women, two illegitimate children, and finally emigration to Australia, where, from her new vantage point―now a doctor and writer―she looks back on her life’s journey. Combining the beauty of Virginia Woolf with the spare, heartbreaking insightfulness of Jean Rhys, the trilogy is both a literary tour de force and an accessible, universal portrait of a woman in search of sustaining love.The concluding volume, The Georges’ Wife , is published here for the first time in the US. The first two volumes have long been out of print. North American readers can now experience “the most ambitious and accomplished work in Jolley’s oeuvre” (J. M. Coetzee).
Short stories portray commonplace characters coping with unexpected situations.
