David Leser David Leser i(A34564 works by)
Born: Established: 1956 Montreal, Quebec,
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Canada,
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Americas,
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Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Raised and educated in Australia, David Leser began his journalistic career as a cadet at the Daily Telegraph in Sydney. From 1982 to 1987, he worked as a foreign correspondent based first in Washington and then in the Middle East. He has also worked as features writer for The Australian Magazine and HQ magazine, and has been with Good Weekend since 1994.

In 2018, he published an article in Good Weekend, called 'Women, Men and the Whole Damn Thing': the response to the article was such that he expanded it into a book by the same title, published by Allen and Unwin in 2019. The book was longlisted for the 'Nib'.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

1999 winner Austcare Media Awards All Media Category

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon To Begin to Know : Walking in the Shadows of My Father Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2014 7507259 2014 single work autobiography

'Wasn't that the whole point of being alive? ... To ask the right questions, not just as a journalist but as a human being? To not just examine other people's dark, cold, self-hating, contradictory, disconnected places, but to examine one's own, given that this was possibly the most uncomfortable inquiry one could ever undertake? ... not to rush to one position or another, but to allow disparate ideas to co-exist, within ourselves and within others. To begin to know oneself, and to begin to know that we don't know.

'More than a decade ago, journalist David Leser started writing a biography of his famous father, legendary magazine publisher, Bernard Leser. But David couldn't finish the project because he didn't want to employ his investigative and forensic feature writer's skills to unmask his father - to do so seemed utterly at odds with his desire to be the loving son he wanted to be. But freed from the obligation of having to think of his father as a book project, David started seeing him as a man, as both a son and a father, as someone loved and familiar but also flawed and unknowable. And the harder he looked at his father, the more he saw himself and how his own life had been lived both in tribute to and rebellion from the legacy of his father.

'A lyrical, deeply moving and searingly honest memoir of two men, father and son, and their shared truths and burdens, To Begin to Know is a story of love and forgiveness, of acceptance and hope. It goes to the heart of a family - the hearts of all families - and asks questions crucial to us all.' (Publication summary)

2015 shortlisted National Biography Award
Last amended 28 Jul 2020 12:29:46
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