Sneaky Little Revolutions Selected essays of Charmian Clift

‘I know it’s a daring suggestion, but I’ll make it anyway.’ Charmian Clift was a writer ahead of her time. Lyrical and fearless, her essays seamlessly wove the personal and the political. In 1964, Charmian Clift and her husband George Johnston returned to Australia after living and writing for many years in the cosmopolitan community of artists on the Greek island of Hydra. Back in Sydney, Clift found her opinions were far more progressive than those of many of her fellow Australians. This new edition of Charmian Clift’s essays, selected and introduced by her biographer Nadia Wheatley, is drawn from the weekly newspaper column Clift wrote through the turbulent and transformative years of the 1960s. In these ‘sneaky little revolutions,’ as Clift once called them, she supported the rights of women and migrants, called for social justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, opposed conscription and the war in Vietnam, acknowledged Australia’s role in the Asia-Pacific, fought censorship, called for an Australian film industry—and much more. In doing so, she set a new benchmark for the form of the essay in Australian literature.

NADIA WHEATLEY is the author of The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift. Described by critic Peter Craven as ‘one of the greatest Australian biographies,’ this was the Age Non-Fiction Book of the Year, 2001 and won the NSW Premier’s Australian History Prize (2002). After twenty years it remains the classic account of the life and work of this transformational Australian writer. Nadia Wheatley’s other works include the award-winning memoir Her Mother’s Daughter. Her most recent book, Radicals – Remembering the Sixties, written in partnership with Meredith Burgmann was published by NewSouth in 2021. CHARMIAN CLIFT was born in the coastal town of Kiama, New South Wales, on 31 August 1923. Fleeing the political claustrophobia of Australia under the Menzies government, in 1952 Charmian headed to London. Two years later, they escaped even further, to the Greek islands, where over the next decade they raised three children and created a legend. During this period, Clift wrote the memoirs, Mermaid Singing and Peel Me A Lotus, and her two novels, Honour’s Mimic and Walk to the Paradise Gardens.

Table of Contents: 1. Contents 2. Introduction 3. Editor’s Note 4. Coming Home 5. Social Drinking 6. Second Class Citizens 7. Youth Revisited 8. On Debits and Credits 9. On Painting Bricks White 10. On Lucky Dips 11. Christmas 12. The Joys of a City 13. The Sounds of Summer 14. The Law of the Stranger 15. The Rare Art of Inspiring Others 16. An Exile’s Return 17. A Death in the Family 18. Things That Go Boomp in the Night 19. A Birthday in the Kelly Country 20. On Letting Asia In 21. On Living for Love Alone 22. Getting with the Forward-Lookers 23. Living in a Neighbourhood 24. On Waiting for Things to Turn Up 25. On Being Unable to Write an Article 26. News of Earls Court—Fifteen Years Ago 27. Saturnalias, Resolutions and Other Christmas Wishes 28. On Being a Home-Grown Migrant 29. On a Lowering Sky in the East 30. On Being Middle-Aged 31. Taking the Wrong Road 32. The Show Behind the Show 33. Banners, Causes and Convictions 34. The Magic of Mornings 35. On Turning Slightly Sepia 36. Read Any Good Books Lately? 37. The Jungle at the Bottom of the Street 38. The Right of Dissent 39. Goodbye to a Skyline 40. Where My Caravan Has Rested 41. Other People’s Houses 42. A Room of One’s Own 43. Report from a Migrant, Three Years After 44. On Trouble in Lotus Land 45. Uncrating Mr Nolan 46. The Centre 47. The Rock 48. The Olgas 49. The Gulf 50. Karumba Observed 51. The Island 52. The Outer Limits 53. The Hippy Warriors 54. The Great South Land 55. On Coming Home 56. On England, My England 57. The Voices of Greece 58. What Are You Doing It For? 59. Long Live Democracy! 60. The Borrowers 61. A Matter of Conscience 62. The Habitual Way 63. On Being a Culture Vulture 64. A New Generation of Protestants 65. Betrothing a Daughter 66. A Portrait of My Mother 67. On Not Answering Letters 68. Bewildered on the Bourse 69. Death by Misadventure 70. A Pride of Lions? 71. I Shall Not Want 72. The Rule of the Olds 73. On Being Alone with Oneself 74. Last of the Old? 75. On Flying the Coop 76. On Tick and Tock 77. The Loftiest Form of Springtime 78. Hallelujah for a Good Pick-Up! 79. The Joys of Holidays 80. Royal Jelly? 81. On Clean Straw for Nothing 82. Anyone for Fish and Chips? 83. Winter Solstice 84. Notes