Her Sunburnt Country: The Extraordinary Literary Life of Dorothea Mackellar

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Description

The first definitive biography of Australian poet and writer Dorothea Mackellar, author of the celebrated poem My Country.

'I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains

Though many Australians know lines from Dorothea Mackellars classic poem My Country by heart, very little has been written about the poets extraordinary life. From her childhood and youth in Sydneys Point Piper and Pittwater, to discovering her love for the Australian landscape on her brothers farm in Gunnedah, Dorothea engaged with the intellectual elite of Sydney and abroad as she embarked on a decades long literary career that saw her linked to some of the leading lights of her day.

A keen traveller, Dorothea visited Japan, Egypt, Fiji, New Zealand and the United States between longer stints in the literary heart of London, where she socialised with the likes of Joseph Conrad and Ezra Pound. At home, she counted among her friends the famed Sydney Herald war correspondent, Charles Bean, and journalistic royalty in the form of the Fairfax family.

Battling against a masculine tradition of Australian bush poetry led by the likes of Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, Dorothea Mackellar boldly carved out a place for herself, leaving an indelible mark on the Australian imagination. Now, for the first time, the poet's unconventional life story is told a hidden gem of Australian history, and a tale of one womans extraordinary passion for her poetry, her family, and her country.

Author Bio

Deborah FitzGerald graduated in 2022 with a Doctor of Arts from the University of Sydney after completing her thesis, In Search of Dorothea: A biography of Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar. During the course of the doctorate, she won the 2021 Dame Leonie Kramer Prize in Australian Poetry and the 2019 Thomas Henry Coulson Scholarship. FitzGerald is also a senior journalist, editor and writer who has worked across major media organisations including the ABC, Channel Nine and News Corp. Her first book,Sophies Boys, was published in 2018.