Category Archives: Literary

American novelist and journalist

Her debut novel The Harp of the South was inspired by the poverty and crime of the Surry Hills area in which they lived. The novel won the Sydney Morning Herald’s literary competition in 1946 and went on to be published in 1948.
Sydney residents were shocked at the novel’s descriptions of slum-life including ‘crime, domestic violence, prostitution and backyard abortions’ (Australian, 2010). In response, the NSW government initially denied the existence of slums in Sydney however they eventually conceded by demolishing many of the dilapidated Victorian terraces around Sydney and relocating residents into housing commission units. She went on to write over fifty books, including nine novels.