Review of Straight Left by Katharine Susannah Prichard An Introduction to Australian Literature ed. C.D. Narasimhaiah, and A Common Wealth of Words ed. Maureen Freer and Ken Goodwin

Abstract

Straight Left, a collection of Katharine Susannah Prichard's articles and addresses on politics, literature and women's affairs, collected by her son Ric Throssell, spans almost sixty years, from 1910 to 1968. Containing much valuable material which could not, because of either unsuitability or length, be included in the Throssell biography, Wild Weeds and Wind Flowers, it forms an almost mandatory supplement to that volume. The title—Katharine herself had spoken of the 'straight left' of her novel Golden Miles— suggests the writer's direct and unequivocal commitment to Australian dissident politics over the whole of those fifty-eight years; a commitment which was not in the least parochial, expanding as it did to encompass a concern with the great causes which confronted mankind over that period—socialism, women's rights, the fight against fascism at home and abroad, the peace movement and finally the anti-nuclear movement. This is the record of a lifetime's selfless devotion to the welfare of others, in particular the Australian working man and woman.