Le Guin’s A Wizard of EarthSea and The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas are just two examples of her prolific and influential writing career in fantasy and science fiction.
Andimba (Herman) Toivo Ya Toivo remained loyal to what made him the personification of the desire to live in an independent country governed by, and for, its people.
South African struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada believed in non-racialism to his core, even as others around him began to argue for an Africanist approach.
Chuck Berry has died age 90, rightly remembered as the legend who shaped rock and roll. But his misdeeds can’t be ignored in the rush to glorify an icon.
Public health pioneer Basil Hetzel died on February 4 2017. Among other career highlights, he identified the most common cause of preventable brain damage: dietary iodine deficiency.
Shirley Hazzard, who passed away this week, was one of the great prose stylists of the last 50 years. A deeply intellectual autodidact, she championed the public duty of writers and the pleasure of reading.
The Australian writer Georgia Blain, who died last week, wrote extraordinary portraits of family relationships, in luminous prose, with devastating insight. And when she became ill, she wrote about her cancer.
Peter Corrigan, one of Australia’s most influential architects, died last week. A man of endless enthusiasm and curiosity, he shaped Melbourne’s cityscape and influenced a generation of architects.
Richard Neville was a man of his times: a smart-alec student in the 60s; a drug-smoking hippie on trial in the 70s; to a family man, writer and public speaker in the 80s and 90s.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne