Ivan Southall

Ivan Francis Southall AM, DFC (8 June 1921 – 15 November 2008) was an Australian writer best known for young-adult fiction.^[1] He wrote more than 30 children's books and seven books for adults.^[2]

Early life

Ivan Southall was born in Melbourne, Victoria. His father died when Ivan was 14, and he and his brother Gordon were raised by their mother. He went to Mont Albert Central School (where he wrote the first of his Simon Black stories) and later Box Hill Grammar, but was forced to leave school early, and became an apprentice process engraver. He joined the Royal Air Force in Britain, and was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in sinking a German U-boat in the Bay of Biscay in 1944. He returned to Australia with his English bride, Joy Blackburn. Their youngest daughter was born with Down syndrome.

He tried his hand at farming at Monbulk, but the attempt foundered. His only option was to become a full-time writer^{[citation needed]}.

Writer

Ivan Southall's novels include Hills End, Ash Road, Let the Balloon Go, and Josh (1962 to 1971). The nonfiction Fly West is a collection recounting his experiences in Short Sunderland flying boats during the Second World War.^[3] He is the only Australian winner of the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books, the 1971 award to Josh.^{[1][4][lower-alpha 1]}

Ivan Southall dealt in his books both with survival in the face of dramatic events such as fire and flood, and with personal and psychological challenges. He was one of the first to write specifically for young adults.^[5]

A retrospective exhibition Southall A-Z: Ash Road to Ziggurat was held in the State Library of Victoria in 1998 and is available online.^[5] It includes an interview conducted in 1997, a biography, bibliography, and exhibition of book cover designs with information about the books.^[6]

He met his first wife, Joy Blackburn, during the 2nd World War, and they had four children, Andrew, Roberta, Elizabeth and Melissa.

He remarried, to Susan Stanton, whom he met in 1974 on his United States visit to deliver the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture at the University of Washington.

Southall died of cancer on 15 November 2008 aged 87.^[7]

Honours

Ivan Southall won the 1971 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising Josh as the year's best children's book by a British subject.^[4] He was the first Medalist from outside the United Kingdom and remains the only one from Australia.^{[8][lower-alpha 1]}

Ash Road, To the Wild Sky, Bread and Honey and the nonfiction Fly West were all named CBCA Australian Children's Book of the Year (1966 to 1976).

Southall was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1981.^[9]

In 2003 he was awarded the Dromkeen Medal by the Oldmeadow Foundation for his lifetime contribution to children's literature in Australia.^[10]

Earlier that year, the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association had recognised The Long Night Watch (Methuen Children's Books, 1983) as the best English-language children's book that did not a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity.^[11]

The Sly Old Wardrobe, written by Southall and illustrated by Ted Greenwood, was named Children's Picture Book of the Year in 1969.^[1]

Works

Nonfiction

• The Weaver from Meltham (Melbourne: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1950) — about South Geelong carpet manufacturer Godfrey Hirst^[12]
• The Story of The Hermitage: the first fifty years of the Geelong Church of England Girls' Grammar School (Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1956)
• They Shall Not Pass Unseen (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1956)
• A Tale of Box Hill: day of the forest (Box Hill: Box Hill City Council, 1957)
• Bluey Truscott (Angus and Robertson, 1958)
• Softly Tread the Brave (1960)about Australian mine clearance officers John Mould and Hugh Syme (GC)
• Seventeen Seconds (1960) an abridged version of Softly Tread the Brave
• Journey into Mystery (1961)
• Parson on the Track (1961)
• Indonesia Face to Face (1964)
• Lawrence Hargrave (1964), in the Six Great Australians series^[1]
• Rockets in the Desert: The Story of Woomera (1965)
• The Challenge: Is the Church Obsolete? (1966)
• Fly West (1974)
• A Journey of Discovery: on writing for children (1975)

Fiction

Further reading

• The loved and the lost: The life of Ivan Southall by Stephany Evans Steggall, Lothian, South Melbourne, 2006.

See also

Notes

References

External links

• Ivan Southall at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Ivan Southall at Fantastic Fiction