Helen Garner

Alexander Jones (University of Sydney)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 9.1.1: Australian Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Susan Kossew (Monash University)

Dates

Born 7 Nov 1942
Activity 1977-ongoing

Places

Born in Australia
Active in Australia

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Story-writer

Resources

Garner's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Helen Garner was born in 1942; she had the greater part of her school education at The Hermitage, a private girls’ school in Geelong, Victoria; she completed a degree at the University of Melbourne, and worked for some years as a teacher in secondary schools. Her first novel,

Monkey Grip

, was published in 1977; since then she worked as a writer, producing a number of works of fiction, non-fiction and journalism. Her reputation rests substantially on her four novels and two extended works of non-fiction.

Fiction:

Monkey Grip won a National Book Council Award in 1978, and later became the basis for a feature film. Its particular success, not necessarily still obvious at the remove of 30 years, is in the extent to which it engaged its audience by giving voice to the experience

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2616 words

Citation: Jones, Alexander. "Helen Garner". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 October 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1685, accessed 28 November 2024.]