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Bruce Bennett Bruce Bennett i(A32904 works by) (a.k.a. B. Bennett; B. H. Bennett; Bruce Harry Bennett)
Born: Established: 23 Mar 1941 Subiaco, Inner Perth, Perth, Western Australia, ; Died: Ceased: 14 Apr 2012 Hughes, Woden Valley area, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory,
Gender: Male
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1 9 y separately published work icon From a Distant Shore : Australian Writers in Britain 1820–2012 Bruce Bennett , Anne Pender , Melbourne : Monash University Publishing , 2012 Z1903759 2012 single work criticism

'Bruce Bennett and Anne Pender explore the lives and creative work of Australia's many expatriate writers living and working in Britain since the early nineteenth century. They contest the notion of Australia as an 'import culture' and show Australians exporting literary talent to Britain and further afield from 1820 until the present. Stories of the lives and work of writers working in all genres, from romance and crime to contemporary literary fiction, are interweaved in a collective biography.


Bennett and Pender uncover many unknown writers and document their adventures both on and off the page. They also discover the expatriate lives of figures such as Pamela Travers (author of Mary Poppins), Frederic Manning, Randolph Stow and Madeleine St John. They explore the work of lesser known writers such as Jill Neville, as well as investigating Christina Stead's expatriate years, the modernist dramas of Patrick White and Barry Humphries, and the arguments with England expressed in the lives and work of Peter Porter, Germaine Greer, Michael Blakemore and Geoffrey Robertson.


This book is the first historically comprehensive, detailed examination of expatriate Australian writers at work in Britain. The authors illuminate two centuries of intense literary activity and discover the major contributions by Australian writers to world literature.'

Source: Monash University Publishing website

1 2 y separately published work icon The Spying Game : An Australian Angle Bruce Bennett , North Melbourne : Australian Scholarly Publishing , 2012 Z1859516 2012 single work criticism

'What are the roles of reason and imagination in secret intelligence? How do apparently normal people get involved? What happens to them?

'While British, American and Soviet empires have produced plentiful supplies of heroes, villains and stirring tales, Australians have typically averted their gaze from this country's involvement in the "second oldest profession". And yet espionage has been a part of Australia's history since the earliest European imaginings of a southern land mass.

'Australian spies have produced their share of heroes and villains and this book shows how they influenced Australia's diplomatic and military policy, and the personal price some of them paid.' (From the publisher's website.)

1 Romantic Modernist Bruce Bennett , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , February no. 338 2012; (p. 47-48)

— Review of Selected Prose of Dorothy Hewett Dorothy Hewett , 2011 selected work prose
1 India Through Australian Eyes, 1850–1950 Bruce Bennett , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Wanderings in India : Australian Perspectives 2012; (p. 36)

'The study of national images and stereotypes has slipped from fashion in some quarters since the rise of postcolonial theory in the 1980s followed by globalisation studies in the 1990s. But as Wolfgang Zach ably reminds us, opposition to the study of national images was also opposed by universalist theorists in the 1950s and 60s led by Rene Wellek (Zack & Kosok 1987:ix–xii). Despite such opposition, then and since, national studies have continued in a variety of forms ranging from the impressionistic to the systematic. Stereotypes and autostereotypes, as well as more in-depth, qualitative analyses recur as writers from one nation attempt to describe or typify another. This essay attempts to explore some of the ways in which India and Indian people were presented in prose narratives by Australians between 1850 and 1950. The approach is eclectic, taking into account historical context, genre and the use of national image-making of selves and others during a century of changing ideas of the nation.' (Introduction)

1 Exploration or Espionage? Flinders and the French Bruce Bennett , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia , vol. 2 no. 1 2011; (p. 14-23)
'The heroic status of Matthew Flinders as the maritime explorer who circumnavigated the Great South Land and gave it the name Australia has deflected attention from allegations against him of spying. During Flinders’s return voyage to England in 1803, he was forced to land at Isle de France (Mauritius) where he was detained for over six years as a spy. This article shows that the high-flown rhetoric of French and British authorities about the objectivity and neutrality of scientific voyages sometimes camouflaged more pressing demands for military intelligence and espionage.' Source: Brice Bennett.
1 The Civilising Value of the Humanities Bruce Bennett , 2011 single work essay
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 56 no. 1 2011; (p. 9-13)
1 The Secret Life of Spies and Novelists : Herbert Dyce Murphy and Patrick White Bruce Bennett , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies , vol. 2 no. 2010;
'This article considers the 'secret life' of two Australians who worked for brief periods in intelligence and transmuted aspects of their experience in stories they subsequently told. Herbert Dyce Murphy's depictions of himself as a 'lady spy' in Europe in the early 1900s came to influence Australia's premier novelist Patrick White in the characterisation of his homosexual protagonist in White's novel The Twyborn Affair (1979). For Dyce Murphy and White, as for W H Auden and others, the image of the spy held maginative appeal as a way of projecting the necessary disguises, subterfuges and possibilities that a life of secrecy entailed.' (Author's abstract)
1 Troubled Waters : Australian Spies in the Pacific : Glimpses from the Early Twentieth Century Bruce Bennett , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 209-223)
'This paper traces aspects of intelligence history and culture in the Pacific in the first quarter of the 20th century from an Australian perspective. Following Federation in 1901, Australia began to develop an intelligence capability in the Pacific. This was characterized by small-scale, 'lone ranger' operations by individuals such as William Bridges in places such as German Samoa, New Caledonia and New Guinea. Although a degree of national self-interest was involved, such exercises reinforced Australia's role in the British empire. Coverage extended to Japan before and after the Russo-Japanese war. Over time, the focus on Japan became paramount. Whereas previous activity among colonial possessions in the South Pacific had mainly involved military reconnaissance, Australian intelligence concerning Japan involved more complex, far-reaching strategic considerations. The contributions of Edmund Piesse and writer and scholar James Murdoch gave depth to Australian analyses of Japan during and after the First World War. Their advice brought them into significant conflict with Australian Prime Minister Hughes. This paper suggests that human intelligence benefits from the study of literature, culture and history. Pacific stories such as those of Louis Becke and fictional works set in Japan such as A.G.Hales's Little Blue Pigeon or James Murdoch's stories open the imagination to foreign ways of thinking and feeling. A corollary to this paper is the need for collaborative comparative studies of intelligence cultures and their histories on both sides of the Pacific.' (Author's abstract)
1 Randolph Stow : 1935-2010 Bruce Bennett , 2010 single work biography
— Appears in: Westerly , November vol. 55 no. 2 2010; (p. 150-154)
1 Australian Encounters with India: Short Prose Narratives Since the 1950s Bruce Bennett , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australia and India : Convergences and Divergences 2010; (p. 18-36)
Bruce Bennett considers 'a range of Australian short narratives that deal with Australian encounters with India since the mid-twentieth century'.
1 The Secret Lives of Spies and Novelists : Herbert Dyce Murphy and Patrick White Bruce Bennett , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Drops of Light Coalescing : Studies for Maria Teresa Bindella 2010; (p. 123-131)
'The paper's "core" is the "secret life" of two Australians who worked for brief periods in intelligence and transmuted aspects of their experience in stories they subsequently told. Herbert Dyce Murphy's depiction of himself as "lady spy" in Europe in the early 1900s came to influence Australia's premier novelist Patrick White in the characterisation of his homosexual protagonist in White's novel The Twyborn Affair (1979). For Dyce Murphy and White, as for W. H. Auden and others, the image of the spy held imaginative appeal as a way of projecting the necessary disguises, subterfuges and possibilities that a life of secrecy entailed.' (278)
1 Wanderer's Merry-Go-Round Is Over Bruce Bennett , 2010 single work obituary (for Randolph Stow )
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 10 June 2010; (p. 12)
2 Australian Literary Encounters with India Bruce Bennett , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Of Sadhus and Spinners : Australian Encounters with India 2009; (p. vii-ix)

— Appears in: Identity, Ethos & Ethnicity : Australia and India 2010; (p. 27-34)
1 Memory, Imagination, and Identity in Secret Intelligence : Christopher Koch's The Memory Room Bruce Bennett , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 23 no. 2 2009; (p. 109-113)
'Sometimes a novel emerges in a culture that touches the nerve of its times even though it is set a generation or so earlier. Dickens's Bleak House is a novel of this kind. The institutions of law remain forever colored by Dickens's satiric observations in this novel. Christopher Koch is not a satirist, but his novel Highways to a War (1995) remains the most memorable of the spate of novels that explored Australia's military involvement in the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1960s and 70s. Koch's latest novel, The Memory Room (2007), set in China and Australia in the early 1980s, has a similar impact and again recalls events some twenty-five years earlier, with a focus on the profession of secret intelligence.' (p. 109)
1 The Short Story, 1890s to 1950 Bruce Bennett , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of Australian Literature 2009; (p. 156-179)
This chapter gives attention to individual short story writers and collections or their work from the 1890s to about 1950 and 'their literary, geographic and historical contexts'. Special attention is given to newspaper and periodical publications as well as books, and responses to them by readers and critics, including the issue of quality judgements and commercial considerations. Subsections include: Predecessors, 1850s to 1880s; The 1890s legend revisited; National and international influences: The Bulletin and Louis Becke; Australian pasts revisited: Ernest Favenc, Price Warung; Lawson and legend; Expatriate writers, editors; Humour and nostalgia: Steele Rudd's selectors; Immigrants and travellers; Indigenous pioneer: David Unaipon; Realists and romantics: Katharine Susannah Prichard and Vance Palmer; Women at crossroads: Richardson, Stead, Barnard; Men at work: Herbert, Casey, Davison, Marshall; Looking backwards and forwards: Peter Cowan.
1 Warrior Spirit, Literary Scholar and Activist Bruce Bennett , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 14 November 2009; (p. 17)

— Review of Warrior for Peace - Dorothy Auchterlonie Green Willa McDonald , 2009 single work biography
1 3 y separately published work icon Of Sadhus and Spinners : Australian Encounters with India Bruce Bennett (editor), S. K. Sareen (editor), Susan Cowan (editor), Asha Kanwar (editor), Noida Pymble : HarperCollins Australia , 2009 Z1615496 2009 anthology short story prose extract 'Despite a shared history of British imperialism, and commonalities like the English language, a democratic polity and a craze for cricket, Australians and Indians know very little about each other of sadhus and spinners attempts to correct this with a range of stories that trace the chequered history of interactions between the two nations from John Langs The Mohammedan mother (1859) to Yasmine Gooneratnes masterpiece (2002), the stories in this anthology bring to the fore a variety of literary responses to Indo-Australian encounters there are stories here of Australian visitors to India and stories about and by Indians-immigrants or temporary visitors-in Australia thoughtful, exploratory and often just wide-eyed in its observation of strange new worlds, the anthology provides insights into an array of fascinating cross-cultural encounters.' (Publication summary)
1 1 y separately published work icon Australian Classics Library Bruce Bennett (editor), Robert Dixon (editor), Sydney University Press (publisher), 2009 Sydney : Sydney University Press , 2009- Z1613164 2009 series - publisher novel poetry short story

The Australian Classics Library series is intended 'to make classic texts of Australian literature more widely available for the secondary school and undergraduate university classroom, and to the general reader. The series is co-edited by Emeritus Professor Bruce Bennett of the University of New South Wales and Professor Robert Dixon, Professor of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, in conjunction with SETIS, Sydney University Press, AustLit and the Copyright Agency Limited. Each text is accompanied by a fresh scholarly introduction and a basic editorial apparatus drawn from the resources of AustLit.'

Source: Sydney University Press website, http://www.sup.usyd.edu.au/
Sighted: 11/08/2009

1 A Guide to Discovering Texts for Our Times Bruce Bennett , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 1 August 2009; (p. 13)

— Review of Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature 2009 anthology correspondence diary drama essay extract poetry prose short story
1 Seriously Funny: Happy Returns of Humour in Australian Short Fiction Bruce Bennett , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Serious Frolic : Essays on Australian Humour 2009; (p. 125-139)
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