Drusilla Modjeska

Drusilla Modjeska (born 1946^{[citation needed]}) is a contemporary Australian writer and editor.

Drusilla Modjeska
Born	1946 (age 78–79) London
Occupation(s)	Writer and editor

Life

Modjeska was born in London and was raised in Hampshire. She spent several years in Papua New Guinea (where she was briefly a student at the University of Papua New Guinea) before arriving in Australia in 1971.^[1] She studied for an undergraduate degree at the Australian National University before completing a PhD in history at the University of New South Wales which was published as Exiles at Home: Australian Women Writers 1925–1945 (1981).^{[citation needed]}

Modjeska's writing often explores the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. The best known of her work are Poppy (1990), a fictionalised biography of her mother, and Stravinsky's Lunch (2001), a feminist reappraisal of the lives and work of Australian painters Stella Bowen and Grace Cossington Smith. She has also edited several volumes of stories, poems and essays, including the work of Lesbia Harford and a 'Focus on Papua New Guinea' issue for the literary magazine Meanjin.^[2]

In 2006, Modjeska was a senior research fellow at the University of Sydney, "investigating the interplay of race, gender and the arts in post-colonial Papua New Guinea".^[3]

Awards

• 1983 – Walter McRae Russell Award for Exiles at Home^[4]
• 1991 – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction for Poppy
• 1995 – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction for The Orchard
• 2000 – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction for Stravinsky's Lunch
• 2000 – ALS Gold Medal for Stravinsky's Lunch

Bibliography

Novels

• —— (1990). Poppy. McPhee Gribble. ISBN 086914099X.
• —— (1994). The Orchard. Picador. ISBN 0330356550. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007.
• —— (2012). The Mountain.

Non-fiction

• —— (1979). Women Writers: A Study in Australian Cultural History, 1920–1939.
• —— (1981). Exiles at Home: Australian Women Writers 1925–1945.
• —— (1989). Inner Cities: Australian Women's Memory of Place.
• —— (1999). Stravinsky's Lunch. Picador. ISBN 0330361864.
• —— (2002). Timepieces. Sydney: Picador. ISBN 0330363727.
• —— (2005). The Green in Glass: The Work of Janet Laurence. Sydney: Pesaro.
• —— (2015). Second Half First.

Edited

• Modjeska, Drusilla, ed. (1985). The Poems of Lesbia Harford.
• Modjeska, Drusilla, ed. (1995). Sisters. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. ISBN 0207190321.
• Modjeska, Drusilla, ed. (2006). The Best Australian Essays. Black Inc. ISBN 1863952780.

Book reviews

• Modjeska, Drusilla (March 2009). "Arise!". The Monthly. 43: 60–62. Review of Philip Roth, Indignation.