Sisters

by Drusilla Modjeska (Editor), Gillian Mears, Elizabeth Jolley

Edited by Drusilla Modjeska, acclaimed author of the Orchard, Poppy and Exiles at Home, this famous anthology explores the sometimes joyous, sometimes vexed world of sisters, with stories and essays by six of Australia's finest writers comprising: Gillian Mears; Elizabeth Jolley; Helen Garner; Beth Yahp; Drusilla Modjeska; and Dorothy Hewett.

Genres: Nonfiction, Short Stories, Memoir, Australia

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 23, 1993

About the author

Drusilla Modjeska was born in England and lived in Papua New Guinea before arriving in Australia in 1971. She studied at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales completing a PhD which was published as Exiles at Home: Australian Women Writers 1925-1945 (1981).

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.

In 2006 she 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".

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Helen Garner is the unequivocal standout in this bland collection. And I know it's terribly fussy, but I couldn't help but feel a parochial kind of horror at the repeated misspelling of my childhood home Goonellabah in Gillian Mears' story.

[Erica Womersley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book and how it put words to the relationships between women friends. A dipping into book that lets you read a chapter of choice, but I read it cover to cover!