Delivering the inaugural Miles Franklin Oration on Tuesday night, 7 June, entitled ‘Reading the Country and thoughts on becoming an Australian author,’ South African born author Peter Temple, spoke with great humour of his experiences coming to understand Australians and his gradual confidence in writing about them. If you want to write about a place he says, you have to learn to read the country.’
‘Australia has a long history of new comers failing to read the country,’ he said reflecting on the exploits of Australia’s many disastrous explorers, such as, Edmund Kennedy who ‘blundered around Queensland’ with his servant ‘Jackey Jackey in a fruitless attempt to find an overland route from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Sydney. ‘How pointless it must all have seemed to Jackey Jackey. Rather like being the sober escort on a night out with Brendan Fevola. Why you think to yourself did I come? And who is this idiot? And where is he going?’
