Alex Miller (writer)

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Alexander McPhee Miller (born 27 December 1936) is an award-winning Australian novelist.[1]

Contents

Life [edit]

Alex Miller was born in London to a Scottish father and Irish mother.[1] After working as a farm labourer in Somerset he migrated alone to Australia at the age of 16.[2] He worked as a ringer in Queensland and as a horse breaker in New Zealand before studying at night school to gain university entrance.[3] Miller graduated from the University of Melbourne in English and History in 1965.[1] In 1975 he published his first short story, 'Comrade Pawel' in Meanjin Quarterly.[4] In 1980 he was a co-founder of the Anthill Theatre and a founding member of the Melbourne Writers' Theatre.[5] Miller taught writing courses at Holmesglen TAFE and La Trobe University between 1986 and 1997.[1] Miller has written full time since 1998. In this time he has written six of his ten published novels and his work has received wide critical acclaim.[1]

Writing [edit]

Miller's first novel, Watching the Climbers on the Mountain, was published in 1988. Major national and international recognition came with the publication of The Ancestor Game, his third novel and the winner of both the Miles Franklin Award and overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1993. Since then Miller has published on average a major novel every two years, his tenth being Autumn Laing published in 2011. The Melbourne critic Peter Craven, writing in The Australian on 14 July 2012, describes Autumn Laing as “superb” and says of it, “it is the novel that is liable to burn brightest in the whole of his oeuvre.” Professor Brenda Walker suggests that 'Alex Miller may be Australia's greatest living writer' [6]

Robert Dixon, Professor of Australian Literature at Sydney University writes that Miller's 'novels are by and large accessible to the general reading public yet manifestly of high literary seriousness - substantial, technically masterly and assured, intricately interconnected, and of great imaginative, intellectual and ethical weight'. The Novels of Alex Miller,[7] edited and with an introduction by Robert Dixon was published in 2012 following a two day Symposium at the University of Sydney in 2011 as a major critical study devoted to Miller’s works.[8]

Awards [edit]

  • The Miles Franklin Award winner in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country
  • Shortlisted for The Miles Franklin award in 1996 for The Sitters, in 2001 for Conditions of Faith, in 2008 for Landscape of Farewell and in 2010 for Lovesong
  • Longlisted for The Miles Franklin award for Prochownik's Dream and in 2012 for Autumn Laing
  • The Commonwealth Writers' Prize winner for The Ancestor Game in 1993
  • The New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction winner in 2001 for Conditions of Faith and in 2011 for Lovesong
  • The Manning Clark House National Cultural Award for an outstanding contribution to the quality of Australian cultural life, winner in 2008 for Landscape of Farewell
  • The Weishanhu Award for Best Foreign Novel in the 21st Century from the People's Literature Publishing House in China, winner in 2008 for Landscape of Farewell
  • The Age Book of the Year award winner in 2010 for Lovesong
  • The Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award[9] for Fiction, shortlisted in 2010 for Lovesong, shortlisted in 2012 for Autumn Laing
  • The Melbourne Prize for Literature,[10] shortlisted in 2006 and in 2009
  • The Melbourne Prize for Literature winner in 2012

Miller is a recipient of the Centenary Medal,[11] and in 2008 the Manning Clark Medal for "An outstanding contribution to Australian cultural life."[12] Miller is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.[13]

Bibliography [edit]

Novels [edit]

Major short essays and short stories [edit]

  • Alex Miller, ‘Comrade Pawel’, 1975, Meanjin Quarterly, No 1, Vol 34.
  • ‘How to Kill Wild Horses’, 1976, Quadrant, No 103, Vol XX, No 2.
  • ‘The Wine Merchant of Aarhus’, 1993, Kunapipi, Vol XV, No 3.
  • ‘Inside Buckingham Palace’, 1994, Brick, No 48.
  • ‘Impressions of China’, 1996, Meridian, Vol 15, No 1.
  • ‘The Last Sister of Charity’, 2000, The Age, 18 Nov.
  • ‘Chasing My Tale, 2003, Kunapipi, Vol XV, No 3.
  • ‘The Black Mirror’, 2006, Art & Australia, Vol 43, No 3.
  • ‘Written in Our Hearts, 2006, Thinking about Truth in Fiction and History’, The Australian, 16–17 Dec.
  • ‘Caught Behind My Imagination’, 2006, The Age, Summer Age, Friday 29 Dec.
  • ‘Salem Lodge,’ 2008, Meanjin Quarterly, Vol 67, No 3.
  • ‘The Artist to Himself’, 2008, Rick Amor: A Single Mind, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Australia.
  • ‘John Masefield’s Attic’, 2009, Closing Address to The Flight of the Mind, Conference National Library of Australia, 25 Oct.
  • ‘The End’, 2009, Cotter, J and Williams M, (Eds), Readings and Writings, Forty Years in Books, Readings, Australia.
  • 'The Circle of His Art', 2011, Skovron, A, Gaita, R, and Miller, A, Singing for All He's Worth, Essays in Honour of Jacob G Rosenberg, Picador, Australia.[14]
  • ‘Ringroad’, Sonya Hartnett, Ed, 2012, The Best Australian Short Stories, Black Inc.

Drama [edit]

  • Kitty Howard (1978), Melbourne Theatre Company
  • Exiles (1981), Anthill Theatre

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e Dixon, R, (Ed), 2012, 'The Novels of Alex Miller, An Introduction', Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
  2. ^ Miller, A, 'Once Upon A Life', The Observer, Magazine, 26 Sept, 2010, pp 12-13
  3. '^ Miller, A, 'On Writing Landscape of Farewell, www.alexmiller.com.au
  4. ^ http://meanjin.com.au/editions/volume-69-number-4-2010
  5. ^ "Reference Number: MS 318 Guide to the Papers of Alex Miller". Academy Library, UNSW@ADFA. Archived from the original on 20 November 2008. Retrieved 5 December 2008. 
  6. ^ Dixon, R, (Ed), 2012, 'The Novels of Alex Miller, An Introduction', Allen & Unwin, Sydney, p 42.
  7. ^ http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781742378640
  8. ^ http://sydney.edu.au/arts/australian_literature/conferences/miller.shtml
  9. ^ http://arts.gov.au/shortlists
  10. ^ http://melbourneprize.org/
  11. ^ http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/awards/medals/centenary_medal.cfm#how
  12. ^ http://manningclark.org.au/content/previous-years-winners
  13. ^ http://www.humanities.org.au/Fellowship/FindFellows/tabid/123/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1679/Miller-Alex.aspx
  14. ^ http://www.panmacmillan.com.au/display_title.asp?ISBN=9781742610436&Author=Gaita,%20Miller%20and%20Skovron

External links [edit]
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