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'''Dorothy Coade Hewett''' {{post-nominals|country=AUS|AM}} (21 May 1923 – 25 August 2002), poet, playwright and novelist, the “''grande dame'' of Australian literature”,<ref>{{Cite news |date=August 26, 2002 |title=The Age}}</ref> is one of the greatest Australian writers of her generation<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Morrison (ed) |first=Fiona |title='‘Introduction’ in Selected Prose of Dorothy Hewett |publisher=UWA Publishing |year=2011 |pages=}}</ref> and a romantic feminist icon.<ref name=":1">Joe Flood (2013) ‘Dorothy Hewett’ pp. 668-671 and ‘Rags to riches” pp. 363-369 in ''Unravelling the Code.'' Deluge Publishing. www.lulu.com/spotlight/coad</ref> In poetry the theatre and in her life, Dorothy Hewett was an experimenter: she “explored hidden truths, and along the way, broke all the rules”.<ref>Kate Tozer, cited in <nowiki>http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0507b.htm</nowiki></ref> In whatever genre she wrote, her work “resonated with passion, intelligence, honesty and the resolute courage of deeply held convictions.”<ref>Peter Goldsworthy, Chair of Australia Council’s Literature Board, cited in Hughes, T. (2003). Rapunzel in Suburbia: A Portrait of Dorothy Hewett. Playwright, Novelist and Poet. <nowiki>http://www.wordconstructions.com/hewett.htm</nowiki></ref>
'''Dorothy Coade Hewett''' {{post-nominals|country=AUS|AM}} (21 May 1923 – 25 August 2002) was an Australian ], ] and ]. She was also a member of the ] for a period, though she clashed on many occasions with the party leadership. In recognition of her 20 volumes of published literature, she received the ], among other honours.

In her lifetime she had 25 plays performed, and published nine collections of poetry and three novels. There have been six anthologies of her work. She wrote numerous articles and was frequently interviewed in her later years.<ref>The site auslit.edu finds 745 works by Hewett, 415 works about the author, and 27 awards.</ref> She received many awards and has been included on Australian Literature syllabuses at schools and many universities.


==Early life== ==Early life==
Until the age of 12, Dorothy lived on a sheep and wheat farm in the Western Australian wheatbelt. The selection of over 2,000 prime acres had been taken by her maternal grandparents in 1912, and the land was cleared by 15-year-old ]. It was said of her grandmother Mary Coade that “money stuck to her fingers”<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Hewett |first=Dorothy |title=Wild Card |publisher=McPhee-Gribble |year=1990 |location=Melbourne}}</ref> and her business acumen made the family wealthy, through a drapery shop in Perth, then in the wheat belt through farm produce, three local general stores, land options along the line of a new railway line, and liens on crops and property.<ref name=":3">Tony Hughes-d’Aeth. (2017). ‘Dorothy Hewett’, Chapter 6 in ''Like Nothing on this Earth: A Literary History of the Wheatbelt.'' UWA Publishing.</ref> Dorothy’s father, Tom Hewett, was among the ten per cent of Australian soldiers to survive both Gallipoli and the Western Front in World War I, and he was twice decorated for bravery.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hewett |first=Arthur Thomas |title=The AIF Project |url=https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=135875}}</ref>
Hewett was born on 21 May 1923<ref name=birns2007>Birns & McNeer.''A Companion to Australian Literature Since 1900'', Camden House, 2007</ref> in ], Western Australia and was brought up on a sheep and wheat farm near ] in the Western Australian ]. {{Citation needed|date=November 2021}} She was initially educated at home and through ]. From the age of 15 she attended ], which was run by ]. Hewett was an ], remaining so all her life. {{Citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Dorothy was educated through correspondence school till age 12, and showed a prodigious talent for writing. She and her younger sister told each other elaborate stories about the landscape of the farm. She began writing poetry at the age of six, and her parents would wake in the night to write down her poems. Her first poem was published when she was nine years old. <9><ref>Dorothy Hewett (1933). “Dreaming”, ''Our Rural Magazine''.</ref> On annual trips to Perth, Dorothy became entranced with the theatre and the world of Hollywood. Her mother suffered from severe early-onset menopause symptoms and beat the wilful and imaginative young Dorothy.<6>

The family moved to Perth in 1935 where they opened the ] in Subiaco. Dorothy attended Perth Ladies College, where she had to wear shoes for the first time, as well as a hat and gloves, a shock after her ragamuffin life on the farm.<ref name=":1" /> As a painfully shy country girl, she was known as “Hermit Hewett”.<ref name=":4">Lynne Hunt and Janina Trotman (2002). ‘Dorothy Hewett’, p -140-152 in Claremont Cameos. Edith Cowan University. https://www.academia.edu/1371467/Hunt_L_and_Trotman_J_2002_Claremont_Cameos_Edith_Cowan_University_Perth</ref> She excelled at English and received the State Exhibition award in English in 1941. To assist his talented daughter, her father took her to meet various Western Australian writers.<ref name=":2" />

Dorothy enrolled at the ] (UWA) in 1942, where she participated eagerly in university life. She won the national ] poetry award that year, aged only 17.<ref>''The West Australian'' 11 September 1941.</ref> With several friends she founded the University Drama Society and acted in a number of Repertory plays, including a melodrama that she wrote herself.<ref>''The West Australian'' 22 August 1941, 5 September 1941, 4 July 1942, 16 November 1945.</ref> She had high distinctions in English, but failed French for several years and did not graduate.

== Realist writer period and the Communist Party ==
After leaving UWA Dorothy worked in a bookshop, and as a cadet journalist with the Perth ''Daily News,''<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> but lost both these jobs. She rejected the lifestyle and aspirations of her wealthy parents and eventually joined the <nowiki>]</nowiki>(CPA). She briefly edited the Communist Party newspaper ''The Workers' Star.''<ref>Justina Williams (1993). ''Anger and Love.'' Arts Centre Press. p.113. Dozens of articles authored by Dorothy Hewett appear in the ''Worker’s Star'' from 1945-47. See ''Trove''. https://trove.nla.gov.au/</ref> Recuperating after an attempted suicide <14> following a failed wartime relationship, she wrote the poem ''Testament'', her first mature work, winning the prestigious ABC Poetry Prize in 1945.<ref>‘Writes prize poem after breakdown.’ ''Daily News'' 31 May 1945.</ref> On the rebound, she married the Party lawyer Lloyd Davies that year and they had a child Clancy in 1947.

After the war she briefly re-enrolled at UWA and became editor of the University journal ''Black Swan'', soon nicknamed ''"Red" Swan''. Her enthusiasm was such that she kept the journal ‘politically pure’ by writing most of the contents herself under various ''noms de plume''.<ref>‘Black Swan’. ''The West Australian'' 26 July 1946, 22 Oct 1947.</ref> <16> The authorities banned it from distribution in any other Australian university.

Dorothy covered the <nowiki>]</nowiki> for the ''Worker’s Star'',<ref>''The Worker’s Star'' 31 Jan 1947.</ref> and wrote the epic ballad ''Clancy and Dooley and Don McLeod,''<ref>"Clancy and Dooley and Don McLeod", ''Union Songs.'' http://unionsong.com/u399.html In the introduction to ''What About the People''? Frank Hardy stated the ballad “equalled anything Lawson and Paterson ever wrote and exceeded either of them in sheer poetic beauty."</ref> which cemented her position as a radical author and a supporter of indigenous rights. However, she now largely abandoned writing for a life of activism and child-rearing.

In 1949 she fell in love with boilermaker Les Flood and eloped with him to Sydney, where they lived in poverty in the slums of inner-city <nowiki>]</nowiki>. In the period of <nowiki>]</nowiki> their house was a regular meeting place for the CPA, devoted to printing and distributing material opposing the Communist Party Dissolution Act and later the <nowiki>]</nowiki>.<ref>Terry Lane (1981). ''Women in Question''. ABC series. https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C407138</ref>

The following year her first child Clancy died of <nowiki>]</nowiki>(ALL) in Melbourne, an event which was to have a profound effect on the rest of her life.<ref>Rozanna Lilley (2018). ''Do Oysters Get Bored.'' UWA Publishing. P 125. Her grandson Nathaniel also died of ALL in 2010.</ref>

In 1952 Dorothy and Les went on a trade union delegation to Russia, and they were among the first westerners to visit the new People’s Republic of China.<ref name=":2" />

She worked for a year as a mill hand in a spinning mill in 1952, which gave her the material for her first novel ]''.<ref>Stephen Knight, (1995). ‘Bobbin Up and the working class novel’, in Bennett, J (ed) (1995) ''Dorothy Hewett: Selected Critical Essays''. Fremantle Arts Centre.</ref> The novel culminates in an episode in which the women organise a strike against poor working conditions and unfair dismissals. The style and content are firmly rooted in ].<ref>Susan McKernan (1989). ''A Question of Commitment: Australian Literature in the Twenty Years after the War.'' Allen and Unwin.</ref> ''Bobbin Up'' was translated into five languages, and today is read as one of the best examples of its genre.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Dorothy engaged in debates about literature and social change from a committed Marxist perspective.<ref>Note to 'Dorothy Hewett: two early essays.' 1995. ''Hecate'' 21, p. 129. https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/ielapa.960807540</ref> She was one of the founders of the left-wing organisation the <nowiki>]</nowiki>, editing the first edition of their journal,<ref>Zora Simic (1999). Notes in search of a location. ''Outskirts'' 5. https://www.outskirts.arts.uwa.edu.au/volumes/volume-5/simic</ref> and participated enthusiastically in Realist Writers groups<ref>John McLaren. A failed vison: Realist Writers’ Groups in Australia 1945-65: the case of ''Overland''.

https://vuir.vu.edu.au/17036/1/MCLAREN-BOXB1-DOC1compressed.pdf</ref> in Sydney and Perth.

Les Flood suffered from recurring paranoid schizophrenia, untreatable at the time, and he became unable to work. Dorothy took a job as a copywriter on the catalogue of the department store Waltons Sears to support the family. In 1958, as Les Flood became increasingly violent and dangerous, she fled back to her parents in WA with their three small boys Joe, Michael and <nowiki>]</nowiki>.<ref name=":3" />


In South Perth her parents built a home for her in Forrest St on the old tennis court at the back of their property. Rebuilding her life, Dorothy trained at teachers' college but she was removed when they found she had been not only married but divorced.<ref name=":4" />
In 1944 Hewett began studying English at the ] (UWA). It was here that she joined the ] (CPA) in 1946 and began writing most of ''The Workers Star'', the WA Communist newspaper, under assumed names. Also during her time at UWA she won a major drama competition and a national poetry competition.{{Citation needed|date=November 2021}}


In 1960 she married the poet, canecutter and seaman Merv Lilley. Merv had been a foundation member of the Bush Music Club<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Bush Music Club |url=http://www.bushmusic.org.au/index.shtml}}</ref>, and introduced the family to folk music, which was beginning its revival.<ref>https://www.warrenfahey.com.au/australian-folk-revival/ </ref> In late 1961 the family, which now included one-year-old <nowiki>]</nowiki>, travelled to Queensland in a caravan to visit Merv’s family. Before leaving WA, Dorothy and Merv roneoed a joint volume of poetry ''What About the People?''<ref>Denis Kevans. ‘These poems are big as life…’ ''Tribune'', 4 December 1963. Review of Realist Writer edition 1963. </ref> In the next few years a number of these poems were put to music by aspiring folk singers. ''Weevils in the Flour,'' a song about the Depression childhood of her friend <nowiki>]</nowiki>, has been a favourite with union choirs and folk singers, and has a folklore all its own.<28<ref>Poem published in ''Tribune,'' 30 November 1960. See Mark Gregory (2009). Industrial song and folksong. ''Australian Folklore'' 24, pp. 91-96. </ref>.. Another song, Sailor Home From the Sea, has been recorded under four different tunes.
In 1944 she married communist lawyer Lloyd Davies and had a son who died of ] at age three. The marriage ended in 1948, following Hewett's departure to ] to live with Les Flood, a ], with whom she had three sons, Joe, Michael and Tom, over five years. During this period Hewett wrote mostly journalism under pseudonyms for the Communist paper, '']'' (the ] had made it illegal), however the time she spent working in a spinning mill and volunteering for the CPA did inform many of her later works.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/5639669 |title = Trove}}</ref>


Les Flood had been sighted in Western Australia, and to avoid him, the family bought an old house in Wynnum, Brisbane. The house had no water or sewerage, and Dorothy caught an intestinal bug. Afterwards she had ongoing health problems that often kept her confined to bed.
==Career==
Following the end of this relationship in 1958 Hewett returned to ] to take up a teaching post in the English department at the ] (UWA). This move also inspired her to begin writing again. ''Jeannie'' (1958) was the first piece she completed following her enforced hiatus; Hewett later admitted to finding this a rejuvenating experience. {{Citation needed|date=November 2021}}


During 1962 the family participated in the radical salon society along the Brisbane foreshore, led by <nowiki>]</nowiki> the folklorist and poet.<ref>  and Joyce Stevens. ''A History of International Women’s Day in Words and Images.'' http://www.isis.aust.com/iwd/stevens/50s60s.htm</ref> With Nancy Wills, Dorothy wrote a short musical play ''Ballad of Women'', which contains many of the Brechtian elements and figures of her later musicals.<ref>Nance McMillan and Dorothy Hewett. ''Ballad of Women.'' https://manuscripts.library.uq.edu.au/h1870</ref> She began to publish new poems in ''Tribune,'' mostly paeans to socialism.<ref>Poems in ''Tribune'' “To the Communists”, 19 September 1962 and ‘Three men’ 9 January 1965.</ref> As they returned to Perth at the end of the year, Dorothy began giving birth to her sixth child Rozanna on the <nowiki>]</nowiki> and the baby was delivered in Kalgoorlie.
Hewett published her first novel, ''Bobbin Up'', in 1959. As the title suggests it was a semi-autobiographical work based on her time in Sydney, the novel was a ] work for Hewett. The novel is widely regarded as a classic example of ]. It was one of the few western works that was translated into Russian during the Soviet era. ] re-published the book in 1999, 40 years after its first publication.{{Citation needed|date=November 2021}}


In Perth, she completed her degree and obtained a position as a university tutor in English which she held till 1973, She financially supported her family with some help from her husband Merv and her parents.
In 1960 Hewett married Merv Lilley (1919-2016), and the marriage would last until the end of her life. They had two daughters, ] and Rose in 1960 and, in 1961 the couple published a joint collection of poetry entitled ''What About the People!''.


Dorothy arranged protests on behalf of the <nowiki>]</nowiki> following a trip to the Weimar Writer’s Conference in 1965<ref>Roger Milliss (1968). ‘Review, ''Windmill Country''. The odyssey of Dorothy Hewett’. ''Tribune'' 25 Sep 1968. Her poem ‘The Hidden journey’ ''Overland'' 36, 1967, one of her best, describes her reservations lyrically and pointedly. See John McLaren 2014, ‘Bias Australian’, ''Overland'' 217. Also Kate Lilley, introduction, ''Collected Poems''</ref> after which she became increasingly disillusioned with communism.<ref>Peter Leyden. ‘In defence of Dorothy Hewett’. ''Tribune'',25 Oct 1967; also Len Fox, ''Tribune'' 11 October 1967.</ref> In 1967 her first full-scale play ''This Old Man Comes Rolling Home,''<ref>Review ''Tribune'' 25 January 1967, p6</ref> a “haunting, poetic portrayal of working class family life in Cold War Sydney” was staged, and it remains popular.<ref>http://www.nuts.org.au/this-old-man-comes-rolling-home.html outlines a performance of the play at NIDA in May 2018.</ref> It would be her last work of socialist realism.
In 1967 Hewett's increasing disillusionment with Communist politics was evidenced by her collection ''Hidden Journey''. Things came to a head for her on 20 August 1968, when ] forces led by the ] brutally suppressed the ] in ]. She renounced her membership of the CPA. This and her critical obituary of the Communist novelist ] caused several Communist writers to circulate material attacking her.{{Citation needed|date=November 2021}}


During the <nowiki>]</nowiki> in 1968 she was a strong supporter of the moderate Czech regime. She and Merv organised a protest march in Perth with students and the CPA.<ref>"Protest cables from Perth". ''Tribune'' 11 September 1968.</ref>Although the CPA distanced itself from the <nowiki>]</nowiki>, along with many others Dorothy left the Party. She was attacked by former friends who remained hardliners.<ref name="alleg" />
In 1973 Hewett was awarded one of the first fellowships by the newly formed ]. The organisation granted her several fellowships, and later awarded her a lifetime emeritus fellowship. Hewett returned to Sydney that year with the hope that this move would further her career as a playwright. During her life she wrote 15 plays, the most famous of which are ''This Old Man Comes Rolling Home'' (1967), ''The Chapel Perilous'' (1972), and ''The Golden Oldies'' (1981). Several plays, such as ''The Man From Mukinupin'' (1979), were written in collaboration with Australian composer ].<ref>Fitzpatrick P , AustralianMusicals, 2001</ref>


== Mature work ==
In 1975, she published a controversial collection of poems, ''Rapunzel in Suburbia'', which resulted in the pursuit of successful libel action<ref>Dimond J and Kirkpatrick P '''' Univ. of Queensland Press, 2000. 193 pp.
From this time on, Dorothy completely rejected her former beliefs and became interested only in writing. She would never be involved in political activism again. When osteoarthritis limited her movement, she had to give up housework and hire a housekeeper, though this took most of her teaching income.
{{ISBN|0-7022-3150-9}}, {{ISBN|978-0-7022-3150-6}}</ref><ref>'''' ABC radio (PM) transcript, 26 August 2002</ref> by her ex-husband Lloyd Davies in relation to specific verses and their quotation in a review by ] in '']'' newspaper.{{cn|date=January 2022}}


She encouraged and constructively criticised the work of young poets and her house became a meeting-place for struggling writers. Weekly meetings were held where poets read their work, and lively social events attended by writers, students, actors and intellectuals were regularly held. She had many friends of different political persuasions.
] published the first volume of her autobiography, ''Wild Card'', in 1990. The book dealt with her lifelong quest for sexual freedom and the negative responses she received from those around her. Two years later she published her second novel, ''The Toucher''.{{cn|date=January 2022}}


In 1968 her first volume of verse ''Windmill Country'' was published, including all her best poems up to that time.
She wrote about sex in a way that many found distasteful, including writing about competing sexually with her daughters.<ref name= alleg/>


==Recognition and awards== ==Recognition and awards==
Hewett has been called "one of Australia's best-loved and most respected writers".<ref name=birns2007/> Hewett has been called "one of Australia's best-loved and most respected writers".<ref name="birns2007">Birns & McNeer.''A Companion to Australian Literature Since 1900'', Camden House, 2007</ref>


Hewett was appointed a ] (AM) in the 1986 Australia Day Honours for service to literature.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/870127|title=Dorothy Coade Hewett|website=honours.pmc.gov.au|access-date=2019-06-14}}</ref> Hewett was appointed a ] (AM) in the 1986 Australia Day Honours for service to literature.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/870127|title=Dorothy Coade Hewett|website=honours.pmc.gov.au|access-date=2019-06-14}}</ref>

Revision as of 12:11, 14 March 2022

Australian feminist poet, novelist and playwright

Dorothy Hewett
BornDorothy Coade Hewett
21 May 1923
Perth, Western Australia
Died25 August 2002 (aged 79)
Occupations
  • Feminist
  • novelist
  • playwright

Dorothy Coade Hewett AM (21 May 1923 – 25 August 2002), poet, playwright and novelist, the “grande dame of Australian literature”, is one of the greatest Australian writers of her generation and a romantic feminist icon. In poetry the theatre and in her life, Dorothy Hewett was an experimenter: she “explored hidden truths, and along the way, broke all the rules”. In whatever genre she wrote, her work “resonated with passion, intelligence, honesty and the resolute courage of deeply held convictions.”

In her lifetime she had 25 plays performed, and published nine collections of poetry and three novels. There have been six anthologies of her work. She wrote numerous articles and was frequently interviewed in her later years. She received many awards and has been included on Australian Literature syllabuses at schools and many universities.

Early life

Until the age of 12, Dorothy lived on a sheep and wheat farm in the Western Australian wheatbelt. The selection of over 2,000 prime acres had been taken by her maternal grandparents in 1912, and the land was cleared by 15-year-old Albert Facey. It was said of her grandmother Mary Coade that “money stuck to her fingers” and her business acumen made the family wealthy, through a drapery shop in Perth, then in the wheat belt through farm produce, three local general stores, land options along the line of a new railway line, and liens on crops and property. Dorothy’s father, Tom Hewett, was among the ten per cent of Australian soldiers to survive both Gallipoli and the Western Front in World War I, and he was twice decorated for bravery.

Dorothy was educated through correspondence school till age 12, and showed a prodigious talent for writing. She and her younger sister told each other elaborate stories about the landscape of the farm. She began writing poetry at the age of six, and her parents would wake in the night to write down her poems. Her first poem was published when she was nine years old. <9> On annual trips to Perth, Dorothy became entranced with the theatre and the world of Hollywood. Her mother suffered from severe early-onset menopause symptoms and beat the wilful and imaginative young Dorothy.<6>

The family moved to Perth in 1935 where they opened the Regal Theatre in Subiaco. Dorothy attended Perth Ladies College, where she had to wear shoes for the first time, as well as a hat and gloves, a shock after her ragamuffin life on the farm. As a painfully shy country girl, she was known as “Hermit Hewett”. She excelled at English and received the State Exhibition award in English in 1941. To assist his talented daughter, her father took her to meet various Western Australian writers.

Dorothy enrolled at the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 1942, where she participated eagerly in university life. She won the national Meanjin poetry award that year, aged only 17. With several friends she founded the University Drama Society and acted in a number of Repertory plays, including a melodrama that she wrote herself. She had high distinctions in English, but failed French for several years and did not graduate.

Realist writer period and the Communist Party

After leaving UWA Dorothy worked in a bookshop, and as a cadet journalist with the Perth Daily News, but lost both these jobs. She rejected the lifestyle and aspirations of her wealthy parents and eventually joined the ](CPA). She briefly edited the Communist Party newspaper The Workers' Star. Recuperating after an attempted suicide <14> following a failed wartime relationship, she wrote the poem Testament, her first mature work, winning the prestigious ABC Poetry Prize in 1945. On the rebound, she married the Party lawyer Lloyd Davies that year and they had a child Clancy in 1947.

After the war she briefly re-enrolled at UWA and became editor of the University journal Black Swan, soon nicknamed "Red" Swan. Her enthusiasm was such that she kept the journal ‘politically pure’ by writing most of the contents herself under various noms de plume. <16> The authorities banned it from distribution in any other Australian university.

Dorothy covered the ] for the Worker’s Star, and wrote the epic ballad Clancy and Dooley and Don McLeod, which cemented her position as a radical author and a supporter of indigenous rights. However, she now largely abandoned writing for a life of activism and child-rearing.

In 1949 she fell in love with boilermaker Les Flood and eloped with him to Sydney, where they lived in poverty in the slums of inner-city ]. In the period of ] their house was a regular meeting place for the CPA, devoted to printing and distributing material opposing the Communist Party Dissolution Act and later the ].

The following year her first child Clancy died of ](ALL) in Melbourne, an event which was to have a profound effect on the rest of her life.

In 1952 Dorothy and Les went on a trade union delegation to Russia, and they were among the first westerners to visit the new People’s Republic of China.

She worked for a year as a mill hand in a spinning mill in 1952, which gave her the material for her first novel ''Bobbin Up. The novel culminates in an episode in which the women organise a strike against poor working conditions and unfair dismissals. The style and content are firmly rooted in Social realism. Bobbin Up was translated into five languages, and today is read as one of the best examples of its genre.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Dorothy engaged in debates about literature and social change from a committed Marxist perspective. She was one of the founders of the left-wing organisation the ], editing the first edition of their journal, and participated enthusiastically in Realist Writers groups in Sydney and Perth.

Les Flood suffered from recurring paranoid schizophrenia, untreatable at the time, and he became unable to work. Dorothy took a job as a copywriter on the catalogue of the department store Waltons Sears to support the family. In 1958, as Les Flood became increasingly violent and dangerous, she fled back to her parents in WA with their three small boys Joe, Michael and ].

In South Perth her parents built a home for her in Forrest St on the old tennis court at the back of their property. Rebuilding her life, Dorothy trained at teachers' college but she was removed when they found she had been not only married but divorced.

In 1960 she married the poet, canecutter and seaman Merv Lilley. Merv had been a foundation member of the Bush Music Club, and introduced the family to folk music, which was beginning its revival. In late 1961 the family, which now included one-year-old ], travelled to Queensland in a caravan to visit Merv’s family. Before leaving WA, Dorothy and Merv roneoed a joint volume of poetry What About the People? In the next few years a number of these poems were put to music by aspiring folk singers. Weevils in the Flour, a song about the Depression childhood of her friend ], has been a favourite with union choirs and folk singers, and has a folklore all its own.<28.. Another song, Sailor Home From the Sea, has been recorded under four different tunes.

Les Flood had been sighted in Western Australia, and to avoid him, the family bought an old house in Wynnum, Brisbane. The house had no water or sewerage, and Dorothy caught an intestinal bug. Afterwards she had ongoing health problems that often kept her confined to bed.

During 1962 the family participated in the radical salon society along the Brisbane foreshore, led by ] the folklorist and poet. With Nancy Wills, Dorothy wrote a short musical play Ballad of Women, which contains many of the Brechtian elements and figures of her later musicals. She began to publish new poems in Tribune, mostly paeans to socialism. As they returned to Perth at the end of the year, Dorothy began giving birth to her sixth child Rozanna on the ] and the baby was delivered in Kalgoorlie.

In Perth, she completed her degree and obtained a position as a university tutor in English which she held till 1973, She financially supported her family with some help from her husband Merv and her parents.

Dorothy arranged protests on behalf of the ] following a trip to the Weimar Writer’s Conference in 1965 after which she became increasingly disillusioned with communism. In 1967 her first full-scale play This Old Man Comes Rolling Home, a “haunting, poetic portrayal of working class family life in Cold War Sydney” was staged, and it remains popular. It would be her last work of socialist realism.

During the ] in 1968 she was a strong supporter of the moderate Czech regime. She and Merv organised a protest march in Perth with students and the CPA.Although the CPA distanced itself from the ], along with many others Dorothy left the Party. She was attacked by former friends who remained hardliners.

Mature work

From this time on, Dorothy completely rejected her former beliefs and became interested only in writing. She would never be involved in political activism again. When osteoarthritis limited her movement, she had to give up housework and hire a housekeeper, though this took most of her teaching income.

She encouraged and constructively criticised the work of young poets and her house became a meeting-place for struggling writers. Weekly meetings were held where poets read their work, and lively social events attended by writers, students, actors and intellectuals were regularly held. She had many friends of different political persuasions.

In 1968 her first volume of verse Windmill Country was published, including all her best poems up to that time.

Recognition and awards

Hewett has been called "one of Australia's best-loved and most respected writers".

Hewett was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 1986 Australia Day Honours for service to literature.

There is a Writer's Walk plaque at Circular Quay in her name, and a street named for her in Canberra.

She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award.

In 1990 a painting of Hewett by artist Geoffrey Proud won the Archibald Prize, Australia's most prominent portrait prize.

Later years, death and legacy

Hewett moved to Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, with her husband Merv Lilley in 1991. She suffered from osteoarthritis but continued to write prolifically, including a novel, Neap Tide (Penguin 1999), a collection of poetry, Halfway Up The Mountain, a play commissioned by the Playbox Theatre in Melbourne, Nowhere, and other unpublished works. At the time of her death, from breast cancer, she was working on the second volume of her autobiography, The Empty Room.

She died on 25 August 2002.

The Dorothy Hewett Award for an unpublished manuscript was established in 2015 by UWA Publishing.

Controversy

In June 2018, Hewett's daughters, Kate and Rozanna Lilley, alleged that they had been sexually assaulted as teenagers by writer and journalist Bob Ellis, artist Martin Sharp, and other men on several occasions, with their mother's approval.

Works

Plays and music theatre

  • This Old Man Comes Rolling Home (1967)
  • Mrs Porter and the Angel (1969)
  • The Chapel Perilous (1972) (first performed in late 1970)
  • Bon-Bons and Roses For Dolly (1972)
  • Catspaw (1974)
  • Joan (1975)
  • The Tatty Hollow Story (1976)
  • The Golden Oldies (1977)
  • Pandora's Cross (1978)
  • The Man From Mukinupin (1979)
  • Golden Valley (1981)
  • Song of the Seals (1983)
  • The Fields of Heaven (1983)
  • Christina's World (1983)
  • Me and the Man in the Moon (1987)
  • Nowhere (2001)
  • Jarrabin

Novels

  • Bobbin Up (1959)
  • The Toucher (1993)
  • Neap Tide (1999)

Poetry

  • What About the People! (1963) (with Merv Lilley)
  • The Hidden Journey (1967)
  • Windmill Country (1968)
  • Rapunzel in Suburbia (1975)
  • Greenhouse (1979)
  • Journeys (1982) (with Rosemary Dobson, Gwen Harwood & Judith Wright)
  • Alice in Wormland (1987)
  • A Tremendous World in Her Head: Selected Poems (1989)
  • Selected Poems (1991)
  • Peninsula (1994)
  • Collected Poems: 1940–1995 (1996)
  • Wheatlands (2000) (with John Kinsella)
  • Halfway Up the Mountain (2001)
  • The Gypsy Dancer and Early Poems (2009)
  • Selected Poems (2010)

Notes

  1. "The Age". 26 August 2002.
  2. ^ Morrison (ed), Fiona (2011). '‘Introduction’ in Selected Prose of Dorothy Hewett. UWA Publishing. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  3. ^ Joe Flood (2013) ‘Dorothy Hewett’ pp. 668-671 and ‘Rags to riches” pp. 363-369 in Unravelling the Code. Deluge Publishing. www.lulu.com/spotlight/coad
  4. Kate Tozer, cited in http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0507b.htm
  5. Peter Goldsworthy, Chair of Australia Council’s Literature Board, cited in Hughes, T. (2003). Rapunzel in Suburbia: A Portrait of Dorothy Hewett. Playwright, Novelist and Poet. http://www.wordconstructions.com/hewett.htm
  6. The site auslit.edu finds 745 works by Hewett, 415 works about the author, and 27 awards.
  7. ^ Hewett, Dorothy (1990). Wild Card. Melbourne: McPhee-Gribble.
  8. ^ Tony Hughes-d’Aeth. (2017). ‘Dorothy Hewett’, Chapter 6 in Like Nothing on this Earth: A Literary History of the Wheatbelt. UWA Publishing.
  9. Hewett, Arthur Thomas. "The AIF Project".
  10. Dorothy Hewett (1933). “Dreaming”, Our Rural Magazine.
  11. ^ Lynne Hunt and Janina Trotman (2002). ‘Dorothy Hewett’, p -140-152 in Claremont Cameos. Edith Cowan University. https://www.academia.edu/1371467/Hunt_L_and_Trotman_J_2002_Claremont_Cameos_Edith_Cowan_University_Perth
  12. The West Australian 11 September 1941.
  13. The West Australian 22 August 1941, 5 September 1941, 4 July 1942, 16 November 1945.
  14. Justina Williams (1993). Anger and Love. Arts Centre Press. p.113. Dozens of articles authored by Dorothy Hewett appear in the Worker’s Star from 1945-47. See Trove. https://trove.nla.gov.au/
  15. ‘Writes prize poem after breakdown.’ Daily News 31 May 1945.
  16. ‘Black Swan’. The West Australian 26 July 1946, 22 Oct 1947.
  17. The Worker’s Star 31 Jan 1947.
  18. "Clancy and Dooley and Don McLeod", Union Songs. http://unionsong.com/u399.html In the introduction to What About the People? Frank Hardy stated the ballad “equalled anything Lawson and Paterson ever wrote and exceeded either of them in sheer poetic beauty."
  19. Terry Lane (1981). Women in Question. ABC series. https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C407138
  20. Rozanna Lilley (2018). Do Oysters Get Bored. UWA Publishing. P 125. Her grandson Nathaniel also died of ALL in 2010.
  21. Stephen Knight, (1995). ‘Bobbin Up and the working class novel’, in Bennett, J (ed) (1995) Dorothy Hewett: Selected Critical Essays. Fremantle Arts Centre.
  22. Susan McKernan (1989). A Question of Commitment: Australian Literature in the Twenty Years after the War. Allen and Unwin.
  23. Note to 'Dorothy Hewett: two early essays.' 1995. Hecate 21, p. 129. https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/ielapa.960807540
  24. Zora Simic (1999). Notes in search of a location. Outskirts 5. https://www.outskirts.arts.uwa.edu.au/volumes/volume-5/simic
  25. John McLaren. A failed vison: Realist Writers’ Groups in Australia 1945-65: the case of Overland. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/17036/1/MCLAREN-BOXB1-DOC1compressed.pdf
  26. "The Bush Music Club".
  27. https://www.warrenfahey.com.au/australian-folk-revival/
  28. Denis Kevans. ‘These poems are big as life…’ Tribune, 4 December 1963. Review of Realist Writer edition 1963.
  29. Poem published in Tribune, 30 November 1960. See Mark Gregory (2009). Industrial song and folksong. Australian Folklore 24, pp. 91-96.
  30. John Manifold  and Joyce Stevens. A History of International Women’s Day in Words and Images. http://www.isis.aust.com/iwd/stevens/50s60s.htm
  31. Nance McMillan and Dorothy Hewett. Ballad of Women. https://manuscripts.library.uq.edu.au/h1870
  32. Poems in Tribune “To the Communists”, 19 September 1962 and ‘Three men’ 9 January 1965.
  33. Roger Milliss (1968). ‘Review, Windmill Country. The odyssey of Dorothy Hewett’. Tribune 25 Sep 1968. Her poem ‘The Hidden journey’ Overland 36, 1967, one of her best, describes her reservations lyrically and pointedly. See John McLaren 2014, ‘Bias Australian’, Overland 217. Also Kate Lilley, introduction, Collected Poems
  34. Peter Leyden. ‘In defence of Dorothy Hewett’. Tribune,25 Oct 1967; also Len Fox, Tribune 11 October 1967.
  35. Review Tribune 25 January 1967, p6
  36. http://www.nuts.org.au/this-old-man-comes-rolling-home.html outlines a performance of the play at NIDA in May 2018.
  37. "Protest cables from Perth". Tribune 11 September 1968.
  38. ^ Nichols, Claire (21 June 2018). "Dorothy Hewett's daughters Rozanna and Kate Lilley talk about re-casting their mum's image in the age of #MeToo". ABC News. Radio National: The Hub on Books. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  39. ^ Birns & McNeer.A Companion to Australian Literature Since 1900, Camden House, 2007
  40. "Dorothy Coade Hewett". honours.pmc.gov.au. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
  41. "The Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript". UWA Publishing. Retrieved 16 July 2017.
  42. Hewett, Dorothy (1976), This old man comes rolling home, Currency Press, ISBN 978-0-86937-049-0
  43. Mrs Porter and the Angel (18 May 1969 - 1 June 1969) [Event description], 1969, retrieved 20 August 2016
  44. Hewett, Dorothy (1900), Mrs. Porter and the angel : a modern fairytale in two acts, retrieved 20 August 2016
  45. Hewett, Dorothy (1972), The chapel perilous : (or, The perilous adventures of Sally Banner), Currency Press, ISBN 978-0-85893-008-7
  46. Hewett, Dorothy; Hewett, Dorothy, 1923-2002. Tatty Hollow story (1976), Bon-bons and roses for Dolly ; The Tatty Hollow story : two plays, Currency Press, ISBN 978-0-86937-047-6{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  47. Hewett, Dorothy (1900), Catspaw : a musical in two acts, retrieved 20 August 2016
  48. Hewett, Dorothy; Flynn, Patrick, 1936-2008 (1984), Joan, Yackandandah Playscripts, ISBN 978-0-86805-009-6{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

References

Further reading

External links

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