Madeleine St John (12 November 194118 June 2006) was an Australian writer, the first Australian woman to be shortlisted
[ Beresford, Bruce (2009) "In memory of a friendship", '']The Canberra Times
''The Canberra Times'' is a daily newspaper in Canberra, Australia, which is published by Australian Community Media. It was founded in 1926, and has changed ownership and format several times.
History
''The Canberra Times'' was launched in ...
'', 28 March 2009, Panorama, p. 9 for the
Booker Prize for Fiction
The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...
(in 1997 for her novel ''
The Essence of the Thing'').
Biography
St John was born in 1941 in
Castlecrag
Castlecrag is a suburb on the lower North Shore (Sydney), North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 8 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the Local government in Australia, local government ...
, a suburb of Sydney, and schooled at
Queenwood School for Girls
Queenwood School for Girls, often abbreviated as Queenwood, is a multi-campus independent non-denominational Christian co-educational primary and secondary day school for girls, located in the suburb of Mosman, on the Lower North Shore of Sy ...
,
Mosman
Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore region of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local governm ...
. She was born to
Edward St John
Edward Henry St John QC (pr: Sinj'n) (15 August 191624 October 1994) was a prominent Australian barrister, anti-nuclear activist and Liberal politician in the 1960s. His political career came to a controversial end after he criticised the Pr ...
, a
Queen's Counsel
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...
, the son of a
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
clergyman.
Her French mother, Sylvette (Cargher), died by suicide
when St John was 12. Her maternal grandparents were Romanian Jews.
["St John, Madeleine (1941–2006)"]
obituary by Christopher Potter, ''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', 6 July 2006
She went the
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...
to study arts where she was a contemporary of
Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford (; born 16 August 1940) is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States.
Beresford's notable films he has directed include ''Br ...
,
John Bell,
Clive James
Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.[Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and public intellectual, regarded as one of the major voices of the radical feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century.
Specializing in English and women's literatu ...]
,
Arthur Dignam
Arthur Dignam (9 September 1939 – 9 May 2020) was an Australian stage and screen actor.
Biography
Dignam was born on Lord Howe Island. He attended Newington College in Sydney as a boarder in 1955 and 1956 and then the University of Sydney.
...
,
Robert Hughes and
Richard Walsh, whom her father defended in the first ''
Oz'' obscenity trial in 1964.
She married Christopher Tillam, a filmmaker, with whom she moved to San Francisco to live while he studied film.
The marriage ended after St John went to live in England during 1968, where she remained. She took a series of jobs in bookshops and offices. Eventually she stuck with a part-time job for two days a week at an antique shop in
Kensington
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
. During the following eight years she attempted to write a biography of
Helena Blavatsky
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, uk, Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 187 ...
but was dissatisfied and destroyed the manuscript.
In the early 1990s she decided to write novels. Her first, ''
The Women in Black
''The Women in Black'' is a 1993 novel by Australian author Madeleine St John. It is her first novel, and is the only one she set in Australia.
Plot summary
The novel tells the story of a group of department store employees in 1959 Sydney. It ...
'' was published in 1993.
Not used to the success her writing brought, she remained a very private person, almost reclusive in style if not in actuality. She died aged 64 at
St Mary's Hospital, London
St Mary's Hospital is an NHS hospital in Paddington, in the City of Westminster, London, founded in 1845. Since the UK's first academic health science centre was created in 2008, it has been operated by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, wh ...
, of
emphysema
Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...
and was cremated at
Kensal Green Cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederic ...
.
A biography ''Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John'', written by
Helen Trinca
Helen Trinca is an Australian journalist and author. She has been managing editor and as is associate editor at ''The Australian''.
Background
Trinca was born in Perth and graduated from the city's University of Western Australia with a BA in ...
, was published by
Text Publishing
Text Publishing is an independent Australian publisher of fiction and non-fiction, based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria.
Company background
Text Media was founded in Melbourne in 1990 by Diana Gribble and Eric Beecher, along wit ...
in 2013.
Writing career
She wrote four novels. The first one, ''The Women in Black'', published in 1993 and re-released in 2009, is a comedy of manners set in a department store in her native Sydney during the 1950s and the only one of her novels to be set in Australia. It was adapted into the 2015 musical ''
Ladies in Black'' by
Tim Finn
Brian Timothy Finn (born 25 June 1952) is a New Zealand singer and musician. His musical career includes forming 1970s and 1980s New Zealand rock group Split Enz, a number of solo albums, temporary membership in his brother Neil's band Crowde ...
and Carolyn Burns. Under Australian director,
Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford (; born 16 August 1940) is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States.
Beresford's notable films he has directed include ''Br ...
the book has been made into a film,
''Ladies in Black'', released in Australia September 2018. In 2018 the book was republished as ''Ladies in Black''.
Her other three are a kind of trilogy based in London's
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan and multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road M ...
, where she lived. ''
The Essence of the Thing'' (1997) was short-listed for the
Man Booker Prize
The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...
. She was working on a new novel when she died.
Beresford writes that "a major strength of her writing was the accumulation of minutiae".
He says that "she was so furious over some minor point in a French translation of one of her novels that she refused to allow it to appear. Kamikaze-like, she stipulated in her will that there were to be no translations of her novels into any language".
Works
*''
The Women in Black
''The Women in Black'' is a 1993 novel by Australian author Madeleine St John. It is her first novel, and is the only one she set in Australia.
Plot summary
The novel tells the story of a group of department store employees in 1959 Sydney. It ...
'' (1993)
*''
A Pure Clear Light
A, or a, is the first Letter (alphabet), letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name ...
'' (1996)
*''
The Essence of the Thing'' (1997)
*''
A Stairway to Paradise'' (1999)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:St John, Madeleine
1941 births
2006 deaths
Australian expatriates in the United Kingdom
Writers from New South Wales
Australian women novelists
20th-century Australian novelists
20th-century Australian women writers
Australian people of Romanian-Jewish descent
Australian people of French descent