Stephen McGrath Stephen McGrath i(A112077 works by)
Born: Established: 1968 Hamilton, Waikato, North Island,
c
New Zealand,
c
Pacific Region, ;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1996
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 y separately published work icon Jimmy Sharman's Boxers : Australia's Legendary Travelling Boxing Troupe Stephen McGrath , Newport : Big Sky Publishing , 2023 26387191 2023 single work biography 'Jimmy Sharman is a conundrum. Raised in a large poor catholic family, becoming a tent boxer at age eleven. He blinds another boxer and is racked by guilt for the rest of his life yet develops an extremely profitable and popular showground fixture. We learn about Sharman's boxing tent spruiking, his unconventional business habits, his furious temper, his leadership and diplomacy. Sharman was twenty seven and medically fit when the war started. We learn the real life stories of several indigenous boxers who were openly defiant against the intense racism they encountered. We meet clumsy Billy Grimes (the flat foot kid) who went on to win several Australian titles. We see an unlikely friendship develop between Rud Kee a Chinese boxer and Sharman. As losses at Gallipoli and the Western Front grow, townspeople begin to question why a troupe of young men is fighting for profit while others are dying. Soon there are few men left, Sharman struggles to find challengers, recruitment propaganda and white feather campaigns intensify. The conscription plebiscites' bitterly divide Australia. Then great personal tragedy visits Archie and the troupe. This story is the result of a remarkable new discovery in Australian history, a true story about how Jimmy Sharman navigated his Boxing Troupe throughout the First World War despite; the war fervour, the conscription debate, pressure to enlist, accusations of cowardice and the tragic loss of so many to the war itself. Based on extensive research of real people and real events, this story tells how Jimmy Sharman managed to continue to tour throughout the war and created an unbeatable boxing troupe of White, Chinese and indigenous boxers, training them to be the most famous of all the Australian Travelling Boxing Troupes. This is an incredible, true and uniquely Australian story, it is beautifully told, giving us deep insight into the struggles of extraordinary people in extraordinary times.' (Publication summary) 
1 1 The Yellow Chair Stephen McGrath , 2012 single work short story
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 21 January 2012; (p. 28-29)
1 2 A Parachute Landing in Siberia Stephen McGrath , 2007 single work short story
— Appears in: The Age , 5 January 2008; (p. 20-21) Award Winning Australian Writing 2008 : The Best Winning Writing from Short Story and Bush Poetry Competitions Nationally 2008; (p. 12-18)
X