NLA image of person
Victor Kelleher Victor Kelleher i(A25908 works by)
Also writes as: Veronica Hart
Born: Established: 1939 London,
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England,
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United Kingdom (UK),
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Western Europe, Europe,
;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1976
Heritage: English
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BiographyHistory

Victor Kelleher moved with his parents to Africa at the age of fifteen; then he spent the next twenty years travelling, studying and teaching. He completed his university education in South Africa and has taught at universities in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. He settled in Australia with his South African wife Alison and family in 1976. Kelleher took up an academic position at the University of New England, Armidale, before moving to Sydney to pursue his writing full time.

Kelleher's regret at leaving Africa was a significant factor in his becoming a writer. He turned his nostalgia into fiction by writing firstly short stories, and then novels. In 1979 he wrote his first novel, Voices from the River. Further writings on Africa include Africa and After, written in 1983 and republished in 1987 as The Traveller, and Em's Story, written in 1988, which describes a turn-of- the-century journey through the Kalahari desert undertaken by Emma Wilhelm and recorded sixty years later by her granddaughter, Eva.

His son's dissatisfaction with children's books led Kelleher to take a new and very successful direction into children's fiction, subsequently winning three Children's Book Council Awards, a Peace Prize for children's literature and various children's choice awards that are especially important to him. In Forbidden Paths of Thual, his first children's novel, Kelleher drew on his own childhood memories to write in ways that appeal to young children, recreating a world that delighted him as a child. In addition to young adult fiction, Kelleher has written further for adults, including a science fiction novel The Beast of Heaven, about nuclear weapons and the effects of war, which owes much to the Australian landscape. His well-known 1992 novel Micky Darlin' is made up of nineteen linked stories, set in wartime and postwar London and recounts the experiences of an Irish boy and his relationship with his grandparents. Kelleher's Red Heart, published in 2001, focuses on global warming and environmental destruction.

A long-time resident of Sydney, he left there once his children had grown up. He lives on a country property near Bellingen, NSW. Outside of writing, his interests include movies, travel, singing, bush walking, and reading.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • For information about this author's works for children, particularly foreign editions not yet included in AustLit, see Australian Children's Books by Marcie Muir and Kerry White (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1992-2003).

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Wanderer Armidale : Christmas Press , 2022 24842874 2022 single work children's fiction children's 'In a dangerous world where predators roam both land and sea, an orphaned young boatman, Dane, wanders alone. Faced with the terrors of the water and the ever-present threat of a warrior group called the Clan, he struggles to survive. Along with his precious kayak, Dane has one other treasure: a much-loved book given to him by his mother, which is a source of comfort in the hardest of times. When he encounters Garth, a book-loving old boat builder, and his amazing granddaughter Lana, everything changes, as he and Lana are pitched into a perilous quest that challenges all they hold dear. The first middle-grade novel in many years, by one of Australia's greatest storytellers, Wanderer is an exciting adventure set in a brilliantly-imagined world. It is also a lyrical love song to the power of books and stories.' (Publication summary)
2023 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Books
y separately published work icon The Magic Violin Camberwell : Penguin , 2006 Z1333081 2006 single work children's fiction children's When Jimbo plays the violin the music is so terrible that the violin takes over and creates its own sound.
2006 shortlisted Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction Children's Division Short Fiction
y separately published work icon Born of the Sea Camberwell : Viking , 2003 Z1035062 2003 single work novel horror historical fiction

'A great Gothic tale revisited. In Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', the monster's unfinished "bride" is destroyed by Dr Frankenstein and cast into the sea. But what if she had survived? What if she had gone on to seek out her maker, her origins, her would-be husband? 

Madeleine Sauvage is a creature with a beautiful face attached to a grotesquely assembled body. She has a loving heart but a murderous hand, and a heart-wrenching longing to belong. Born of the sea, Madeleine begins a journey that takes her from Scotland, through revolutionary France, to Frankenstein's door and beyond. Her search ends in a sense where it began: with Mary Shelley, the true author of her soul. And it is at Mary's deathbed that she confesses all, about her life, her love, and her need for revenge... '

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2003 winner Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction Horror Division Novel
Last amended 9 Apr 2018 15:46:10
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