Kylie Tennant Biography

Australian novelist and historian, born in New South Wales, educated at Sydney University. Her experiences as a journalist, reviewer, lecturer, and bee-keeper, among other jobs, provided material for her novels. Her books frequently concern dispossessed sections of society and offer lively evocations of working lives. Tiburon (1935) was a novel about poverty during the Depression years, as was The Battlers (1941), which focused on agricultural day-workers at that time. A vigorous humanitarianism is demonstrated in many of her works including Foveaux (1939), about slum dwellers, and Ride on Stranger (1943). As well as novels, such as Time Enough Later (1943), Lost Haven (1946), The Joyful Condemned (1953; retitled Tell Morning This, 1967), The Honey Flow (1956), and Tantavallon (1983), she also published Australia: Her Story (1953); Speak You so Gently (1959), a study of Aboriginal collectives; and children's books. Her autobiography, The Missing Heir, appeared in 1986.