My Brother Jack
Page 43
These classics are our indispensable voices. At a time when our culture was still noisy with foreign chatter and clouded by foreign visions, these writers told us our own stories and allowed us to examine and evaluate both our homeplace and our place in the world. – GERALDINE BROOKS
About the Author
George Johnston was born in Melbourne in 1912, the son of working-class parents. At the age of sixteen his career as a journalist was launched with the publication of several articles in the Melbourne Argus. By the time the Second World War broke out, Johnston was already an established journalist. He became Australia’s first official war correspondent, and wrote for Time magazine.
Towards the end of the war he met Charmian Clift, who was also an accomplished writer. They married, and in 1951 left Australia with their two children and moved to London, later settling on the Greek island of Hydra.
During the 1950s Johnston contracted tuberculosis, the disease that led to his premature death. He returned alone to Australia in 1964 for the launch of My Brother Jack which, along with Clean Straw for Nothing, won the Miles Franklin Award. The last few months of his life were concentrated in an effort to finish the third novel of the trilogy, A Cartload of Clay. He died in 1970.
Other books by George Johnston
Grey Gladiator 1941
Battle of the Seaways 1941
Australia at War 1942
New Guinea Diary 1943
Pacific Partner 1944
Skyscrapers in the Mist 1946
Journey Through Tomorrow 1947
Moon at Perigee 1948
Cyprian Woman 1955
The Darkness Outside 1959
Closer to the Sun 1960
The Far Road 1962
The Far Face of the Moon 1965
The Australians 1966
Clean Straw for Nothing 1969
A Cartload of Clay 1971
War Diary 1942 1984
With Charmian Clift
High Valley 1949
The Big Chariot 1953
The Sea and the Stone 1955
The Strong-man from Piraeus, ed. Garry Kinnane 1983
Copyright
A&R Classics
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in 1964 by William Collins & Sons Pty Ltd
This edition published in 2013
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Ltd
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © George Johnston 1964, Estate of George Johnston 1970
Introduction © Brian Matthews 1990
The right of George Johnston to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Johnston, George, 1912-1970.
My brother Jack / George Johnston.
978 0 7322 9704 6 (pbk.)
978 0 7304 9972 5 (epub)
A823.3
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio.
Cover image by Kevin Curtis/Getty Images