Family pictures

by Beth Yahp

254 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Beth Yahp is an award-winning author, editor and creative-writing teacher of adults and children. She has published short fiction and travel and memoir feature articles in Australia, South-East Asia and Europe. Her novel The Crocodile Fury is translated into several languages and her libretto, Moon Spirit Feasting, for composer Liza Lim, won the APRA Award for Best Classical Composition in 2003.

Beth has worked as an editor and taught creative writing for many years, including at the University of Technology, Sydney, Macquarie University, the American University of Paris, and currently at the University of Sydney. She completed her Doctorate of Creative Arts in travel and memoir writing at the University of Technology, Sydney. She was the presenter of Elsewhere, a program for travelers on ABC Radio National (2010-11).

Author Lives In: Sydney, Australia

Reviews

[Rhonda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very clever, interesting collection of autobiographical writing by significant enough Australian writers. The subtitle is that it explores ‘the notion of the Australian family’ and pays ‘tribute to its diversity’. A big topic except it doesn’t because, as usual, though the families come from different places, there is no First Nation family included. One story has suggestions of potential further back along the family line but it is not stated clearly, merely hinted at, and a racist sibling turns away in disgust from a suggestive photograph and later makes a dreadful joke which the author seems to glide apologetically over. Disappointing but only too common. This collection, by omitting a First Nation writer and a First Nation family biography missed the chance to lead the way in offsetting an only too common abuse of truth telling. By silencing that voice yet celebrating itself as a champion of diversity it removed a family that had more right to be there than all those it included.