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My Brother Jack

Page 43

by Johnston, George


  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.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada

  10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA

  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

 

 

 


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