Ahead of the release of Charles Spencer’s controversial memoir, Dennis Altman picks 5 reads shedding light on the British monarchy.
Articles on Biography
Displaying 1 - 20 of 93 articles
Speechwriter Don Watson’s insider account of the prime minister he worked for, written ‘in tragic mode’, was an instant bestseller – but Keating famously hated it.
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s excellent book Regime Change reveals the depth and consequences of Donald Trump’s obsession with fame and power.
She was a trusted mentor to young militants whose 1976 uprising shaped the country forever.
In A.D. Hope: A Life, Susan Lever shows the philosophical reach, formal brilliance and impassioned force of Hope’s poetry.
Most of Errol Flynn’s films now seem B-grade at best – but Patricia O'Brien’s biography of this Tasmanian devil is compulsive reading.
Marlowe’s artistic brilliance was arguably more concentrated, his imagination more original and his ideas more daring than Shakespeare’s.
Due to the vagaries of her music manuscripts and the historical neglect of women composers, Bembo and her opera were overlooked for centuries.
Children’s writer Penni Russon grew up reading Judy Blume. She read her biography trying to find the person she knew intimately from her novels.
Edwin Mtei, Tanzania’s first central bank governor, showed that people can hold different views without enmity.
Even for those not interested in royal gossip, Andrew Lownie’s joint biography of former Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson is a fascinating – and revealing – read.
Australian author Elizabeth Harrower wrote four novels in rapid succession. Then she stopped. Perhaps the miracle is that she wrote anything, given her childhood.
Elaine Goodale and Charles Eastman’s 19th-century interracial marriage made them a media sensation. But tensions over gender, race and identity ultimately proved too hard to overcome.
Anne Frank has come to symbolise many things. Can we ‘restore her as a human being’?
We’ve had Jane Austen biopics, biographies, screen adaptations galore. Now, her life story is told graphically, with both invented dialogue and glossary of sources.
A biography of scientists Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis LeClerc explores the complex, disparate lives of two brilliant men who shaped the study of natural history.
‘Queer’ is a word often used to describe Edward Gorey’s mysterious, spooky art. So why is it so hard to acknowledge the artist behind them was queer as well?
Dominic Amerena’s debut novel explores the selfish side of literary life: the desire to have a real story, no matter who it belongs to – or what it may cost.
Each of these writers, in their own way, modelled what it is to be an ‘inconvenient’ woman – something we need now, perhaps more than ever.
Yoko Ono has long been abused as a homewrecker – and worse. A new biography celebrates her joyful positivity in adverse circumstances – and celebrates her as an artist.
Top contributors
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Professor of Communication, Deakin University
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Dennis Altman is a Friend of The Conversation.
Vice Chancellor's Fellow and Professorial Fellow, Institute for Human Security and Social Change, La Trobe University
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Professor Emeritus, Australian Literature, The University of Queensland
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Senior Lecturer, School of the Arts & Media, UNSW
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Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
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Associate Professor in Modern European History and Jewish History, UNSW
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Senior Fellow, McCormack Graduate School, UMass Boston
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Senior Research Fellow at the National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
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Kidman Chair in Australian Studies and Director, JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice, Adelaide University
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Professor of Modern Italian History, University of Bristol
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Professor Emeritus, School of Government and International Relations; Adjunct Professor, Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University
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Distinguished Professor Emerita of Creative Practice, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra
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Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Professor of History, Rochester Institute of Technology