Frank Hardy

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For the Frank Hardy in the Hardy Boys novels, see Frank Hardy (The Hardy Boys)

Frank Hardy (21 March 1917–28 January 1994) was a left-wing novelist and writer from Australia. He was also a political activist bringing the plight of Aboriginal Australians to international attention with the publication of his book The Unlucky Australians in 1968. He ran for the Australian parliament twice.

Frank Hardy was born into a Roman Catholic family in 1917 and lived in Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne. In 1930 at the age of 13 he left school and started a series of manual jobs. As a result of his experiences during the Depression, Hardy joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1939. In 1942 he enlisted in the Army and was posted to Darwin. Initially editing and writing a unit newspaper for the Australian army, he was employed as an artist for the army journal Salt. He continued to work in journalism for most of his life. Although he opposed the foundation of the Australian Society of Authors for political reasons in 1963, he later joined the Society and served on its Management Committee. He played an active role in assisting the Gurindji people in the Gurindji strike in the mid to late '60s.

His most famous work, Power Without Glory, initially published by Hardy himself with the assistance of Communist Party members, was filmed by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in 1976. The novel was a fictionalised version of the life of a Melbourne businessman, John Wren, and was set in the fictitious Melbourne suburb of Carringbush (based on the actual suburb Collingwood). In 1950, Hardy was arrested for criminal libel and had to defend the book in a celebrated case shortly after the publication of Power Without Glory. Hardy detailed the case in his book The Hard Way.

Hardy was a member of the Realist Writers Group, who he represented at the Third World Youth Festival for Peace in Berlin.

Hardy's sister, Mary Hardy was a popular radio and television personality in the 1960s and 1970s in Australia.

Frank Hardy died at his home in North Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, from a heart attack on 28 January 1994 aged 76.

Hardy's granddaughter, Marieke Hardy is a writer in Melbourne.

[edit] Bibliography

Legends from Benson's ValleyISBN 0-14-007504-6
But the Dead Are Many: A Novel in Fugue Form, 1975, ISBN 0-370-10570-2
Power Without Glory, 1950. Reprint 2000 ISBN 0-522-84888-5
The Hard Way, ISBN 0-00-614471-3
Outcasts of Foolgarah, 1971, ISBN 0-85887-000-2
The Unlucky Australians, 1972 ISBN 0-7260-0012-4
The Obsession of Oscar Oswald, ISBN 0-9592104-1-5
The Four Legged Lottery 1958 ISBN 0-00-614501-9

[edit] Books about Frank Hardy

Frank Hardy Politics Literature Life, Jenny Hocking, Lothian Books, South Melbourne 2005 ISBN 0-7344-0836-6
Frank Hardy and the Literature of Commitment, edited by Paul Adams & Christopher Lee is (The Vulgar Press, North Carlton, Vic 2003)
Frank Hardy and the Making of Power without Glory, Pauline Armstrong (Melbourne University Press)ISBN 0-522-84888-5
The Stranger From Melbourne: Frank Hardy - A Literary Biography 1944 - 1975, Paul Adams, University of West Australia Press, 1999 ISBN 1-876268-23-9