AustLit
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Every biographer has a relationship with their subject, even if they have passed away. A real advantage for biographers of the dead is that the subject cannot say what they think about the book. The relationship between Margaret Simons and Penny Wong was fraught. That this mattered is evident from the opening sentence: ‘Penny Wong did not want this book to be written.’ Simons, a journalist, biographer, and associate professor at Monash University, uses her preface to complain about how difficult it was researching the book without Wong’s assistance and against her will. Finally, well into Simons’s writing, she was invited to Senator Wong’s office, where Wong gave her ‘a hard time’. The relationship thawed and Simons was able to conduct six interviews. Readers will be glad that Wong overcame her resistance to this intrusion into her life: the stories in Wong’s voice and her personal memories are rich elements of the book. Yet there are recurrent reminders of Simons’s tense relationship with her subject.' (Introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 16 Dec 2019 08:56:23