Thea Astley (1925–2004)
Author of It's Raining in Mango
About the Author
Thea Astley was born in Brisbane in 1925. She attended the University of Queensland before teaching in both Queensland and New South Wales. She was on the staff at Macquarie University in Sydney from 1968 to 1980. Astley has won the Miles Franklin Award four times: The Well Dressed Explorer in show more 1962, The Slow Natives in 1965, The Acolyte in 1972, and Drylands in 2000. Astley's novel, The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow, was nominated in 1997 for the Miles Franklin Award. Thea Astley is featured on the Albert Street (Brisbane) literary trail, which commemorates authors who have used Brisbane as a locale. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Thea Astley
Associated Works
Australian Literature: An Anthology of Writing from the Land Down Under (1993) — Contributor — 26 copies
Goodbye to Romance: Stories by New Zealand and Australian Women Writers, 1930-1988 (1989) — Contributor — 10 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Astley, Thea Beatrice May
- Birthdate
- 1925-08-25
- Date of death
- 2004-08-17
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- Australia
- Birthplace
- Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
- Place of death
- Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
- Places of residence
- Epping, New South Wales, Australia
Kuranda, Queensland, Australia
Nowra, New South Wales, Australia - Education
- All Hallows' School
University of Queensland - Occupations
- teacher
novelist
short-story writer - Organizations
- Macquarie University
- Awards and honors
- Order of Australia (Officer, 1992)
Patrick White Award (1989) - Agent
- Curtis Brown Australia P/L
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 19
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 1,155
- Popularity
- #22,250
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 34
- ISBNs
- 114
- Languages
- 2
- Favorited
- 7
Astley strikes me as Australia's answer to Muriel Spark, or Margaret Drabble. They too are authors who can seem a bit "dried up" to my generation but - once the book has begun - surprise us with their savagery and insight. And unlike most of Australia's great writers born before 1940 (Patrick White and Christina Stead come to mind), she was truly Australian from birth to death.
The Slow Natives haunts me, and I'm not even sure it's one of her best books. It is, nevertheless, a riveting portrait of the grayness of life and the chances some take to grab at flecks of colour therein - or, more often, the way ordinary people remain blind to those polychromatic moments. Is Astley cruel? Many readers think so. I instead see her as honest, reflecting a guarded, territorial, tall-poppy-obsessed 1960s Australia. I hope our culture has changed in 60 years. I think it has. But, then again, no-one in Astley's fiction seems too far removed from our reality.… (more)