John Morrison (John Gordon Morrison) Biography

Australian writer, born in Sunderland, England; he settled in Australia in 1923. He has been a jackeroo, swagman, dock worker, and gardener. He published stories in Meanjin and Overland, about fellow workers, union activities, the people he met on the tram to work, and social conditions. Morrison published two novels, The Creeping City (1947) and Port of Call (1949), and several collections of stories, including Sailors Belong Ships (1947), Black Cargo (1955), Twenty-Three (1962), North Wind (1982), Stories of the Waterfront (1984), and This Freedom (1985). His style and technique can be described as Australian social realism with polished devices derived from European realist story writers. Stories such as ‘The Incense Burner’, in which a sick sailor, unable to work his passage home, burns gum leaves in his lonely room, reflect Australian nostalgia. Others, including ‘North Wind’, a description of fighting a bush fire, display a narrative power which have contributed to his reputation as a master of his craft. He has also published a collection of essays, The Happy Warrior (1990).