Kylie Tennant

Kathleen Kylie Tennant AO ( /ˈkaɪliː/;^[1] 12 March 1912 – 28 February 1988) was an Australian novelist, playwright, short-story writer, critic, biographer and historian.

1 Life and career
2 Awards
3 Bibliography
4 Notes
5 Sources and external links

Life and career

Tennant was born in Manly, New South Wales; she was educated at Brighton College in Manly and Sydney University, though she left without graduating. She was a publicity officer for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, as well as working as a journalist, union organiser, reviewer (for The Sydney Morning Herald), a publisher's literary adviser and editor, and a Commonwealth Literary Fund lecturer. She married L. C. Rodd in 1933; they had two children (a daughter, Benison, in 1946 and a son, John Laurence, in 1951).

Her work was known for its well-researched, realistic, yet positive portrayals of the lives of the underprivileged in Australia. In a video interview filmed in 1986, three years before her death for the Australia Council’s Archival Film Series, Tennant told how she lived as the people she wrote about, travelling as an unemployed itinerant worker during the Depression years, living in Aboriginal communities and spending a short time in prison for research.^[2]^[3]

Two of Tennant's novels, Battlers and Ride on Stranger, set in the 1930s have been made into television mini-series.^[3]^[4]

Awards

1935: S. H. Prior Memorial Prize awarded by The Bulletin magazine, for Tiburon^[5]
1940: S. H. Prior Memorial Prize (run by the Bulletin), for The Battlers, shared with Eve Langley, The Pea-Pickers, and Malcolm Henry Ellis's "John Murtagh Macrossan lectures".
1942: Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for The Battlers
1960: Children’s Book Council Book Award for All the Proud Tribesmen
1980: Officer of the Order of Australia for services to literature^[6]

Bibliography

Novels

Tiburon (1935. Sydney: Endeavour Press) — first published in serial form in The Bulletin
Foveaux (1939. London: Gollancz; 1946. Sydney: Sirius)
The Battlers (1941. London: Gollancz; New York: Macmillan; 1945. Sydney: Sirius)
Time Enough Later (c.1942. New York: Macmillan; 1945. London: Macmillan). A humorous coming of age story about a young woman and her relationship with an artistic older man.
Ride on Stranger (1943. New York: Macmillan; London: Gollancz; Sydney: Angus & Robertson)
Lost Haven (1946. NY: Macmillan; Melbourne: Macmillan; London: Macmillan)
The Joyful Condemned (1953. London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press)
The Honey Flow (1956. London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press)
Tell Morning This (1967. Sydney: Angus & Robertson) — complete version of The Joyful Condemned
The Man on the Headland (1971. Sydney: Angus & Robertson)
Tantavallon (1983. Melbourne: Macmillan) ISBN 0-947072-02-0

Short stories

Ma Jones and Little White Cannibals (1967. London)

For children

Long John Silver (1954. Sydney: Associated General Publications) — adapted from the screenplay by Martin Rackin
All the Proud Tribesmen (1959. London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press; 1960. Melbourne: Macmillan) — illustrated by Clem Seale. Children's Book Award (1960)
Come and See: social studies for Third Grade (1960. Melbourne: Macmillan)
We Find the Way: social studies for Fourth Grade (1960. Melbourne: Macmillan)
Trail Blazers of the Air (1965. Melbourne: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press) — illustrated by Roderick Shaw

Plays

Modern Plays for Schools 3 (John o' the Forest, Lady Dorothy and the Pirates, The Willow Pattern Plate, The Laughing Girl, Christmas at the Old Shamrock Hotel) (1950. London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press)
Tether a Dragon (1952. Sydney: Associated General Publications) — Commonwealth Jubilee Stage Play Prize
Modern Plays for Schools 15 (The Bells of the City, The Magic Fat Baby, The Prince Who Met a Dragon, The Ghost Tiger, Hamaguchi Goh Ei) (1955. London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press)
The Bushrangers' Christmas Eve and other plays (The Tribe of the Honey Tree, The Ladies of the Guard, A Nativity Play, The Play of the Younger Son, The Emperor and the Nightingale) (1959. London: Macmillan; New York:St Martin's Press)

Biography and history

Australia: Her Story (1953. London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press)
Speak You So Gently: lives among the Australian Aborigines (1959. London: Gollancz)
Evatt: politics and justice (1970. Sydney: Angus & Robertson)
The Missing Heir (1986. Melbourne: Macmillan) — her autobiography

Criticism

The Development of the Australian Novel (1958. Canberra: CLF)
(with L.C. Rodd) The Australian Essay (1968. Melbourne: Cheshire)

Notes

^ See Pronunciation of Kylie. PronounceNames.com
^ "Kylie Tennant (1986) - Documentary/Interview". Australian Screen. http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/kylie-tennant/. Retrieved 2008-05-03.
^ ^a ^b Sage, Lorna; Germaine Greer, Elaine Showalter (1999). The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English. Cambridge University Press. p. 619. ISBN 0521668131. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=NB59uc9_ss8C&pg=PA619&lpg=PA619&dq=:Ride+on+Stranger%22+Tennant.
^ "Kylie Tennant". Imdb. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0855054/. Retrieved 2008-05-03.
^ Creswell, Toby; Samantha Trenoweth (2006). 1001 Australians You Should Know. Pluto Press Australia. ISBN 1864033614. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=QqtinbjO0oEC&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=%22All+the+Proud+Tribesmen%22+Tennant#PPA219,M1.
^ "It's an Honour - Tennant, Kylie (Mrs Rodd)". Australian Government. http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/honour_roll/search.cfm?aus_award_id=870194&search_type=quick&showInd=true. Retrieved 2008-05-03.

Sources and external links

A Tennant Bibliography — compiled by Ross Burnet (included individual short-story magazine appearances)
A picture of Kylie Tennant: [1]
Grant, Jane (June 2006). An Australian Life: Kylie Tennant. National Library of Australia. ISBN 9780642276179.

Persondata
Name	Tennant,Kylie
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1912-03-12
Place of birth
Date of death	1988-02-28
Place of death