Book description

Years after his death, poet and political warrior James McAuley continues to provoke controversy. This is the story of his hidden relationship with fellow poet Harold Stewart.

'This book began as a biography of James McAuley. I was at first surprised and then intrigued by how often, and how fruitfully, his path intersected with that of Harold Stewart. When I read the latter's major work, By the Old Walls of Kyoto and heard about his secret life, I decided I wanted to write a book on both.' What followed was a quest to discover what McAuley was searching for in the jungles of New Guinea, and what lay behind his terrible nightmares and abiding self-distrust. Best known to the public as the founding editor of Quadrant, an unrepentant Cold War warrior and a public advocate of the sanctity of Christian marriage, the poet and polemicist had far darker and more puzzling traits which escaped the lime-light. Similarly, answers had to be found to what turned Stewart, a writer, critic and habitue of Sydney's bohemian world, into a rabid hater of his native land. Why did this great poet-an intensely private person yet a prolific correspondent-choose to spend the last thirty years of his life in self-imposed exile in Japan? The resulting narrative traces McAuley and Stewart's collaborative decades- peaking with Australia's most notorious literary hoax-and their harsh falling-out in later years, set against the swirling backdrop of Australian life between the great depression and the Vietnam war. Damaged Men probes the lives of two greatly talented and enigmatic figures, whose enduring and prescient contributions to Australia's political, spiritual and literary culture have been too long neglected. 

About the Author

Michael Ackland teaches in the School of Literary, Visual and Performance Studies at Monash University. His twin interests are biography and the intersection of literature with the history
of ideas. Among his publications are The Penguin Book of 19th Century Australian Literature, and Henry Kendall: The Man and the Myths. To write Damaged Men had gained access to previously untapped manuscripts and private papers belonging to both McAuley and Stewart.

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