Madeleine St John
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}{{Short description|Australian writer (1941 – 2006)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Madeleine St John
| image = File:Madeleine St John by Jerry Bauer.jpg
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1941|11|12}}
| birth_place = Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2006|06|18|1941|11|12|df=yes}}
| death_place = London, England
| occupation =
| language = English
| nationality = Australian
| ethnicity =
| citizenship =
| education =
| alma_mater =
| notableworks = The Women in Black
The Essence of the Thing
| awards =
| years_active = 1993-1999
}}
Madeleine St John (12 November 1941{{spaced ndash}}18 June 2006) was an Australian writer, the first Australian woman to be shortlistedBeresford, Bruce (2009) "In memory of a friendship", The Canberra Times, 28 March 2009, Panorama, p. 9 for the Booker Prize for Fiction (in 1997 for her novel The Essence of the Thing).
Biography
St John was born in 1941 in Castlecrag, a suburb of Sydney, and schooled at Queenwood School for Girls, Mosman. She was born to Edward St John, a Queen's Counsel, the son of a Church of England clergyman. Her French mother, Sylvette (Cargher), died by suicide when St John was 12. Her maternal grandparents were Romanian Jews.[http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/st-john-madeleine-13361 "St John, Madeleine (1941–2006)"], obituary by Christopher Potter, The Independent, 6 July 2006
She went the University of Sydney to study arts where she was a contemporary of Bruce Beresford, John Bell, Clive James, Germaine Greer, Arthur Dignam, Robert Hughes and Richard Walsh, whom her father defended in the first Oz obscenity trial in 1964.{{cite web|title=Madeleine St John – Writer Exposed British Mores|last=Stephens|first=Tony|work=The Sydney Morning Herald|url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/writer-exposed-british-mores/2006/06/28/1151174264401.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1|date=29 June 2006|accessdate=19 February 2008}}
She married Christopher Tillam, a filmmaker, with whom she moved to San Francisco to live while he studied film. The marriage ended after St John went to live in England during 1968, where she remained. She took a series of jobs in bookshops and offices. Eventually she stuck with a part-time job for two days a week at an antique shop in Kensington. During the following eight years she attempted to write a biography of Helena Blavatsky but was dissatisfied and destroyed the manuscript.
In the early 1990s she decided to write novels. Her first, The Women in Black was published in 1993.
Not used to the success her writing brought, she remained a very private person, almost reclusive in style if not in actuality.{{cite book | title=Madeleine St. John Biography | last= | first= |url=http://www.bookrags.com/biography/madeleine-st-john-dlb/ | date= | accessdate=2008-02-19 }} She died aged 64 at St Mary's Hospital, London, of emphysema and was cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery.[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/madeleine-st-johns-life-in-pieces/story-e6frg8h6-1226597376438 "Madeleine St John's life in pieces"] by Helen Trinca, The Australian, 16 March 2013
A biography Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John, written by Helen Trinca, was published by Text Publishing in 2013.
Writing career
She wrote four novels. The first one, The Women in Black, published in 1993 and re-released in 2009, is a comedy of manners set in a department store in her native Sydney during the 1950s and the only one of her novels to be set in Australia. It was adapted into the 2015 musical Ladies in Black by Tim Finn and Carolyn Burns. Under Australian director, Bruce Beresford the book has been made into a film, Ladies in Black, released in Australia September 2018.{{cite web | title=Ladies in Black | website=ACMI | url=https://www.acmi.net.au/events/ladies-black/ | access-date=14 Sep 2018}} In 2018 the book was republished as Ladies in Black.{{cite web | title=Ladies in Black, book by Madeleine St John | website=Text Publishing | date=6 Aug 2018 | url=https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/ladies-in-black | access-date=14 Sep 2018}} Her other three are a kind of trilogy based in London's Notting Hill, where she lived. The Essence of the Thing (1997) was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. She was working on a new novel when she died.
Beresford writes that "a major strength of her writing was the accumulation of minutiae". He says that "she was so furious over some minor point in a French translation of one of her novels that she refused to allow it to appear. Kamikaze-like, she stipulated in her will that there were to be no translations of her novels into any language".
Works
- The Women in Black (1993)
- A Pure Clear Light (1996)
- The Essence of the Thing (1997)
- A Stairway to Paradise (1999)
References
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Category:Australian expatriates in England
Category:Writers from New South Wales
Category:Australian women novelists
Category:20th-century Australian novelists
Category:20th-century Australian women writers