'We are alike, Kathy thought. You are a desperate one, too. She was incredulous that she could be so happy when it was so perfectly clear that the situation was impossible, could not possibly last, and that in any case this man was doomed already.
'In this third solo novel, Charmian Clift broke the rules of the romance genre by her representation of a relationship between a middle class Australian woman and a Greek sponge diver who is an outcast even within his own society. Both are ‘desperate’ – trapped in loveless marriages and overcome by a sense of nameless dread. But when these twin souls fall in love in the ruins of an ancient citadel above the port-town of a remote and poverty-stricken Greek island, ‘honour’ becomes ‘mimic’ – a false imitation of itself – and is cast aside, together with unhappiness and fear.
'Honour’s Mimic combines the authentic Greek setting of Charmian Clift’s travel memoirs with the fine writing that has caused her to be described as Australia’s greatest essayist.' (Publication summary (2025))
'For 20 years Charmian Clift wrote fiction and non-fiction from locations in Australia, England and Greece. When she returned to Australia from Greece in 1964, she explored new career opportunities in newspapers and television. Throughout this long period of publication Clift worked on an autobiographical fiction that she hoped to publish when time permitted. This paper examines the dimensions of a utopian spirit that supported Clift’s journey across countries and genres in search of an authorial self in which she felt most ‘at home. Travel memoir, journalism and fiction, as well as extracts from Clift’s unfinished autobiographical work ‘The End of the Morning,’ are examined to describe her engagement with utopian principles as a way of achieving, through writing, social change and personal fulfilment.' (Publication abstract)
'For 20 years Charmian Clift wrote fiction and non-fiction from locations in Australia, England and Greece. When she returned to Australia from Greece in 1964, she explored new career opportunities in newspapers and television. Throughout this long period of publication Clift worked on an autobiographical fiction that she hoped to publish when time permitted. This paper examines the dimensions of a utopian spirit that supported Clift’s journey across countries and genres in search of an authorial self in which she felt most ‘at home. Travel memoir, journalism and fiction, as well as extracts from Clift’s unfinished autobiographical work ‘The End of the Morning,’ are examined to describe her engagement with utopian principles as a way of achieving, through writing, social change and personal fulfilment.' (Publication abstract)
