AustLit

'Even for a 17-year-old upstart from Muswellbrook, the diary entry was a stunning declaration of intent: ‘‘Friday, 7th January 1938. It is my desire to do great things, but I have not yet decided what great things … if I write I want to write literature. I want to write for Australian literature too.” The desire for greatness was just as startling as the clarity of its direction. From the earliest moments of his writing life, Donald Horne’s literary ambition was conceived as a contribution to a larger national project, one that ultimately involved dragging Australia out of its provincial torpor towards a future that was independent, republican and explicitly founded on the values of ‘‘liberal humanism”. Horne would write both to and for Australia.'  (Introduction)

'The American novelist Richard Yates once remarked to an interviewer that he had the misfortune of having written his best book first. He might have found an ally in Donald Horne, whose first book, The Lucky Country, is perhaps the most widely read piece of social criticism ever written by an Australian. Published in 1964, its famous and often misinterpreted title entered the Australian lexicon and outlived its creator. Its central argument – that Australia’s prosperity was the result of luck rather than good leadership – is a curse that continues to plague the nation’s unimaginative political class. The book’s success haunted the public career and legacy of its author. Though he was, among other things, a journalist, editor, social critic, novelist, academic, polemicist, and self-styled ‘public waffler’, in public memory, he remains Donald Horne, author of The Lucky Country.' (Introduction)