Beverley Farmer

Beverley Anne Farmer (also known as B. Christou) (7 February 1941 – 16 April 2018) was an Australian novelist and short story writer.

Personal life

Beverley Farmer was born in Melbourne. She was educated at Mac.Robertson Girls' High School and at the University of Melbourne, where she graduated with a BA in 1960.

She worked in various jobs, mainly secondary-school teaching and running a restaurant, before becoming a professional writer.[1] She married a Greek migrant, Christos Talihmanidis, in 1965, to whom she was married for thirteen years, three of them spent in Greece. They returned to Australia for their son to be born in 1972 and they were subsequently divorced.[1]

Farmer's autobiographical novella Alone (1980) reworked a story which had appeared in Westerly (1968). It was published by the firm of Sisters and "gives a sensitive portrayal of the breakup of a lesbian relationship."[1] While she is best known for her fiction, Farmer has also written essays, poetry, reviews and criticism. Her writing has appeared in several magazines, journals and newspapers, including Overland, Westerly, Meanjin, Island Magazine, and The Bulletin.

Loss features as a central theme in Farmer's stories. She described it as the "touchstone" of her work.[2] The "experience of being foreign" was also favoured.[3] Several stories in her 1985 book Home Time show growing awareness of the relation between life and fiction, writers and readers. She was an admirer of her fellow Australian novelist Marjorie Barnard.[1]

Beverley Farmer died on 16 April 2018, aged 77.[4][5]

Awards and nominations

Selected works

Short story anthologies
  • Snake (1982)
  • Milk (1983)
  • Home Time (1985)
  • Collected Stories (1987)
  • This Water: Five Tales (2017)

Novellas
  • Alone (1980)
  • The Seal Woman (1992)
  • The House in the Light (1995)

Other
  • A Body of Water: A Year's Notebook (1990)
  • The Bone House (2005)
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References
  1. Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy: The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 357.
  2. Farmer, Beverley. "Preoccupations". ALS 14 (1990): 390.
  3. Hergenhan, Laurie. ed. The Australian Short Story. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2002, p. 413.
  4. Death Notice, The Age. Retrieved 20 April 2018
  5. Sydney Morning Herald, Obituary, 19 April 2018. Retrieved 20 April 2018
  6. "Farmer wins 2009 Patrick White Literary Award". Boomerang Books. Retrieved 2009-11-11.

Further reading
  • Jacobs, Lyn. Against The Grain: Beverley Farmer's Writing. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2001. Critical Study in UQP Studies in Australian Literature, which includes biographical material, analysis of novels, short stories and poetry
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