The Invisible Biographer

Caroline Baum talks to the doyenne of Australian biography Brenda Niall on the publication of her memoir, An Accidental Career, about her evolution as a biographer, which coincided with fresh interest in figures in Australian cultural history.

Niall reflects on how the status of biography has changed, how she came to write about figures like the Boyd dynasty and the recurring themes of home and displacement as central to her understanding of her subjects, whether writing about painter Judy Cassab or the daunting figure of Archibishop Mannix.

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