In this episode of Jennifer Byrne Presents, Jennifer Byrne and guests 'embark on a fascinating exploration of one of the most popular writing genres - literary hoaxes. Hoaxes are almost as old as literature itself and they take many forms - frauds, plagiarism, pranks and impostures. Some hoaxes are perpetrated for money, some as practical jokes while others serve a political argument. Authorial intention, historical and social context and ethical implications must be considered. Central to most hoaxes is the concept of identity - the author's race and gender and what readers are led to believe from this apparent identity.
'In Jennifer Byrne Presents, we explore some of the most famous literary hoaxes and scandals from Ern Malley to Norma Khouri and Helen Demidenko, from the point of view of those who created them, and those who unmasked them...
'Joining Jennifer is Malcolm Knox, who broke the Norma Khouri hoax story, Walkley award-winning journalist and author Jack Marx, Michael Heyward, author of The Ern Malley Affair (1993) an account of the literary hoax perpetrated by poets James McAuley and Harold Stewart, and finally, John Bayley, who posed as Leon Carmen's literary agent and together they created the fictional Indigenous author Wanda Koolmatrie. Her novel My Own Sweet Time, won the 1996 Nita May Dobbie Award for a first novel by a female writer.'
Source: ABC1 website, http://www.abc.net.au/tv/
Sighted: 10 March 2009
