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Image courtesy UQP
Liam Davison Liam Davison i(A4544 works by) (a.k.a. Liam Patrick Davison)
Born: Established: 29 Jul 1957 Melbourne, Victoria, ; Died: Ceased: 17 Jul 2014
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Ukraine,
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Former Soviet Union,
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Eastern Europe, Europe,

Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Liam Davison taught history, English and creative writing in Victorian high schools and colleges.

His short fiction won many awards and his first novel The Velodrome (1988) was shortlisted for the 1987 Australian/Vogel Award. His short stories are widely published and broadcast, many of which are included in Collected Stories (2001). Supported by grants from the Australia Council, Davison wrote Soundings (1993) which won the National Book Council Banjo Award for fiction. Set in the Westernport Bay area of Victoria, the novel describes events from several periods of Australian history. Historical events are conflated in a complex narrative that demonstrates how the past continues to exist in the present.

Davison won more grants, including a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship which he used to travel in Italy and France. His third novel The White Woman (1994) was short-listed for several prizes, including the Age Book of the Year. Set in Gippsland, Victoria, the novel explores the notions of civilisation, history and myth surrounding the disappearance of a woman during the 1840s. Davison explores similar themes in Betrayal (1999). Set mainly in France, the novel examines the actions of a woman who is forced to remember a brutal crime she witnessed thirty years earlier.

Along with his wife, Frankie, Davison was one of the 298 people killed when the Malaysian Airlines plane (MH17) he was travelling in was shot down over Ukraine.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Soundings St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1993 Z319311 1993 single work novel

'In this haunting novel, Cameron's life changes when he retreats to a small community in the Westernport swampland. The landscape becomes his obsession and photographs reveal unsettling images from the past.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1993 winner NBC Banjo Awards NBC Banjo Award for Fiction
The Wetlands 1988 single work short story
— Appears in: Fictions 88 1988; (p. 99-102) The Shipwreck Party 1989; (p. 86-91) Collected Stories 2001; (p. 79-84)
1988 runner-up ABC / ABA Bicentennial Literary Award For the State of the Art Short Story Award
The Swimmer 1984 single work short story
— Appears in: Westerly , October vol. 29 no. 3 1984; (p. 37-43) Australian Short Stories , vol. 2 no. 5 1984; (p. 7-13) Not Drowning, But Waving : Fifteen Years of the National Short Story Competition 1988; (p. 157-167) The Shipwreck Party 1989; (p. 12-23) Penguin Australian Summer Stories 1999; (p. 104-116) Collected Stories 2001; (p. 13-22)
1983 winner The Canberra Times National Short Story Competition Pat Rappolt Prize for Writers Under 25
Last amended 22 Jul 2014 19:07:46
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