A splendidly vivid display . . . carrying the reader by force of its narrative and its sharply detailed, entirely convincing voice The Times
Miles Franklin (1879-1954) was born into a pioneering family settled in New South Wales, Australia. She wrote My Brilliant Career when she was only sixteen. Publication in 1901 brought instant fame and a notoriety that was so unwelcome that she forbade its republication until ten years after her death.
Franklin then went to America, where she worked for the Women's Trade Union League, and later London and Salonika, where she did war work as a political secretary for the National Housing Council.
In 1933 she returned to Australia, where she spent the rest of her life. My Career Goes Bung, the sequel to My Brilliant Career, was published in 1946, and her autobiography, Childhood at Brindabella, posthumously in 1963.
Carmen Callil was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia, and came to the UK in 1960. She began working in publishing five years later and in 1972 founded the Virago Press, which she continued to chair until 1995. Her first book, Bad Faith: A History of Family and Fatherland, was published by Vintage in 2007. It was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.
