Maria Tumarkin is an Australian

cultural historian Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

, and is Senior Lecturer in the School of Culture and Communication at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

, teaching creative writing.

Biography

Tumarkin was born and raised in

Kharkov Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.

, then part of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, now in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. She left her home country in 1989 when she was a teenager, before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. She holds a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

and a PhD in

cultural history Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...

from the University of Melbourne. She writes books of ideas, reviews, essays and pieces for performance. She was an Honorary Artistic Outreach Associate (2015–2016) at the

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE) is an Australian research centre that undertakes research in the history of emotions. The Centre was established in 2011 with core funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), ...

and a co-creator, with Moya McFadzean, of "The Unending Absence" project.

Works

Books

* '' Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy'' (2005) * ''Courage'' (2007) * ''Otherland: A Journey With My Daughter'' (2010) * ''Axiomatic'' (2018)

Essays (selected)

*''This Narrated Life'' (Griffith Review, 1 May 2014) *''No Skin'' (2 September 2015) *''Against Motherhood'' (20 October 2018)

Awards

*''Otherland'' was shortlisted for the

Victorian Premier's Literary Awards The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Government with the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry. As of 2013, it is reportedly Australia's richest literary p ...

, The Age Book of the Year, and NSW Premier’s Literary Award. *''No Skin'' was one of five finalists for the 2015 Melbourne Prize in Writing for essays shorter than 20,000 words.''Where are all the great Australian essays?'', 24 February 2016
Sydney Morning Herald *''Axiomatic'' won the 2018 Melbourne Prize for Best Writing and was shortlisted for the 2019

Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction The Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction, formerly known as the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has a remuneration of 25,000. The winner of this category p ...

. It was also shortlisted for the 2019 Stella Prize. and the 2019 NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction. *Winner of the 2020 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize

References

External links

Personal Site
Living people University of Melbourne alumni 20th-century Australian historians 21st-century Australian historians Year of birth missing (living people) {{Australia-historian-stub