''The Unknown Industrial Prisoner'' (1971) is a

Miles Franklin Award The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–195 ...

-winning novel by Australian author David Ireland. In 1978 a film version was planned, to be produced by Richard Mason and directed by

Arch Nicholson Arch Nicholson (1941 – 24 February 1990) was an Australian film director. He was born in Melbourne and grew up in Western Australia, originally training to be a teacher. Seeing ''Last Year at Marienbad'' made him want to become a filmmaker an ...

, with

Ken Cameron Ken Cameron (born 1946) is an Australian film and television director and writer. Cameron was born in Tenterfield, New South Wales, Australia and graduated from Sydney University with BA in 1968. He has won two AFI Awards for directing. Filmo ...

also working on it. Funding was from

Film Australia Film Australia was a company established by the Government of Australia to produce films about Australia in 1973. Its predecessors were the Cinema and Photographic Branch (1913–38), the Australian National Film Board (1939–1955, under diffe ...

. However, the Minister for Home Affairs Bob Ellicott cancelled the film on the grounds it was uncommercial, a rare instance of political interference in the Australian film industry.David Stratton, ''The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival'', Angus & Robertson, 1980 p16Rod Bishop & Peter Beilby, "Ken Cameron", ''Cinema Papers'', March–April 1979 p 258

Critical reception

Helen Brown in ''The Canberra Times'' noted that the novel is "a big, good book with an important and timely theme and it should assure David Ireland a place in the front ranks of contemporary Australian writers. Yet my chewing was dogged and dutiful rather than enjoyable and the pages had a persistent tendency to stick in my throat...The writing is excellent, sliding naturally from tough, idiomatic Australian to occasional passages of great power and beauty. The ironic Australian tone of voice is at its best, the timing, the rhythm and the words exactly right. It is my guess David Ireland has put the true flavour of Australian English on the literary map."

Critical reception

References

See also