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Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon My Beautiful Enemy single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2013... 2013 My Beautiful Enemy
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'"I was blinded by his beauty. In the one or two photographs I've kept of him I can still see it. He stares out of them almost miserably, as if his loveliness is an affliction. Not that I saw it that way, at least not in the beginning. In the beginning I thought it was a kind of miracle."

'Arthur Wheeler is haunted by his infatuation with a Japanese youth he encountered in the enemy alien camp where he worked as a guard during WW2. Abandoning his wife and baby son, Arthur sets out on a doomed mission to rescue his lover from forced deportation back to Japan, a country in ruins.

'Thus begins the secret history of a soldier at war with his own sexuality and dangerously at odds with the racism that underpins the crumbling British Empire.

'Four decades later Arthur is still obsessed with the traumatic events of his youth. He proposes a last reunion with his lost lover, in the hope of laying his ghosts to rest, but this mission too seems doomed to failure.

'Like Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and Snow Falling On Cedars, My Beautiful Enemy explores questions of desire and redemption against the background of a savage racial war. In this context, Arthur's private battles against his own nature, and against the conventions of his time, can only end in heartache.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Notes

  • Dedication: for Shin
  • Epigraph: Why is the measure of love loss? -Jeanette Winterson

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2013 .
      image of person or book cover 452711756486302867.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 272p.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 24/04/2013
      ISBN: 9781922079893, 9781921961618 (ebook)

Works about this Work

Franklin Short List Revealed William Yeoman , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 20 May 2014; (p. 7)
Writers' War of Words Deborah Bogle , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 28 February 2014; (p. 39)
Brisbane Writers the Last Word in Talent Sally Browne , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 1 May 2014; (p. 50)
Cory Taylor : My Beautiful Enemy Bianca Rohlje , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: ArtsHub , June 2014;

— Review of My Beautiful Enemy Cory Taylor , 2013 single work novel

'In our final appraisal of the Miles Franklin shortlist, we review Brisbane author Cory Taylor's My Beautiful Enemy.'

Holding Your Enemies Close Phil Brown , 2013 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 11-12 May 2013; (p. 19)
Loving the Thing You're Supposed to Hate Mark Dapin , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 18-19 May 2013; (p. 20)

— Review of My Beautiful Enemy Cory Taylor , 2013 single work novel
Arthur's Quest Dennis Altman , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 352 2013;

— Review of My Beautiful Enemy Cory Taylor , 2013 single work novel
Wartime Wound That Never Heals Rebecca Starford , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 29-30 Jume 2013; (p. 27) The Age , 29 June 2013; (p. 26) The Canberra Times , 29 June 2013; (p. 23)

— Review of My Beautiful Enemy Cory Taylor , 2013 single work novel
Well Read Katharine England , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 8 June 2013; (p. 28)

— Review of My Beautiful Enemy Cory Taylor , 2013 single work novel ; The Memory Trap Andrea Goldsmith , 2013 single work novel
Reader's Life 2013 single work review
— Appears in: Good Reading , August 2013; (p. 72)

— Review of The Wounded Guardian Duncan Lay , 2009 single work novel ; My Beautiful Enemy Cory Taylor , 2013 single work novel
Holding Your Enemies Close Phil Brown , 2013 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 11-12 May 2013; (p. 19)
Brisbane Writers the Last Word in Talent Sally Browne , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 1 May 2014; (p. 50)
Writers' War of Words Deborah Bogle , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 28 February 2014; (p. 39)
Franklin Short List Revealed William Yeoman , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 20 May 2014; (p. 7)
Finding the Man Portia Lindsay (interviewer), 2013 single work interview
— Appears in: Books + Publishing , February vol. 92 no. 4 2013; (p. 27)
'In her second novel, Cory Taylor worked hard to capture the voice of her protagonist, a young soldier infatuated with a Japanese youth in an internment camp in regional Victoria during World War II. She spoke to Portia Lindsay.'
Last amended 13 Jul 2021 11:49:09
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