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Jane Harrison Jane Harrison i(A34457 works by)
Born: Established: 1960 ;
Gender: Female
Heritage: Aboriginal Muruwari / Murrawarri ; Aboriginal
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BiographyHistory

A descendant of the Muruwari people (Bourke and Brewarrina area), Jane Harrison is a playwright, critic, and novelist. Raised by her mother (alongside a sister) in the Victorian Dandenongs, she worked first as a copywriter for advertising agencies before she was commissioned by Ilbijerri Theatre Company to write the play Stolen. The play was included in the VCE English and NSW HSC syllabi and awarded the Kate Challis RAKA Award in 2002. It remains her best-known and most-toured play.

Harrison followed Stolen with a succession of plays about Australian Aboriginal experiences, including Walkabout, Rainbow's End, Blakvelvet, Custody, and First Contact, which was directed by Leah Purcell under the title The Visitors. Harrison's plays are widely performed, studied, and awarded: Rainbow's End (2005) was included in the NSW HSC syllabus between 2009 and 2012, Blakvelvet won the Theatrelab Indigenous Award in 2006, and Custody won the Holmes à Court Indigenous Award in 2007.

Harrison made her debut as a novelist in 2015 with Becoming Kirrali Lewis (which, in manuscript form, won a Kuril Dhagun Indigenous Writing Fellowship), a coming-of-age story of an Aboriginal teenager growing up in the 1980s and coming to an understanding of her parents' life among the turbulent activism of the 1960s.

Harrison also holds a Master of Arts degree from the Queensland University of Technology, for a thesis that examined 'the challenges for non Aboriginal theatre practitioners in accessing and interpreting Aboriginal themes'.

Exhibitions

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2019 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Theatre Arts Projects For Individuals and Groups $24,957
2019 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships

Literature Arts Projects For Individuals and Groups $46,625.00

2016 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Australia Council Literature Board Grants Theatre Arts Projects For Individuals and Groups $13,661.00

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Visitors London : Fourth Estate , 2023 26929455 2023 single work novel

'On a steamy, hot day in January 1788, seven Aboriginal men, representing the nearby clans, gather at Warrane. Several newly arrived ships have been sighted in the great bay to the south, Kamay. The men meet to discuss their response to these visitors. All day, they talk, argue, debate. Where are the visitors from? What do they want? Might they just warra warra wai back to where they came from? Should they be welcomed? Or should they be made to leave? The decision of the men must be unanimous -- and will have far-reaching implications for all. Throughout the day, the weather is strange, with mammatus clouds, unbearable heat and a pending thunderstorm ... Somewhere, trouble is brewing.

'From award-winning author and playwright Jane Harrison, The Visitors is an audacious, earthy, funny, gritty and powerful re-imagining of a crucial moment in Australia's history - and an unputdownable work of fiction.' (Publication summary)

2024 longlisted HNSA Historical Novel Prize Adult
2024 winner Indie Awards Debut Fiction
The Visitors 2023 single work musical theatre opera

'We join seven Aboriginal Elders in 1788 as they meet ‘The Visitors’.

;Imbued with Aboriginal customs, melody and humour from composer Christopher Sainsbury and libretto by original playwright and Muruwari woman, Jane Harrison, it tells the story of the early days of colonialism and its impacts on the First Peoples. Through metaphors of birds falling from the sky and changes to the weather, we watch as the Elders question how to respond to ‘the visitors’.'

Source: Production blurb.

2024 nominated Victorian Green Room Awards New Operatic Work
y separately published work icon Becoming Kirrali Lewis Broome : Magabala Books , 2015 8272099 2015 single work novel young adult

'Set within the explosive cultural shifts of the 1960s and 1980s, Becoming Kirrali Lewis chronicles the journey of a young Aboriginal teenager as she leaves her home town in rural Victoria to take on a law degree in Melbourne in 1985. Adopted at birth by a white family, Kirrali doesn't question her cultural roots until a series of life-changing events force her to face up to her true identity.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2016 highly commended Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Writing for Young Adults
2016 commended Australian Centre Literary Awards The Kate Challis RAKA Award
2014 joint winner black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowships
2016 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Young Adults' Fiction
Last amended 9 Sep 2019 12:05:51
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