Name Alan Marshall | Role Writer | |
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Alan Marshall, (2 May 1902, Noorat, Victoria – 21 January 1984, Melbourne) was an Australian writer, story teller, humanist and social documenter.
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Marshall received the Australian Literature Society Short Story Award three times, the first in 1933. His best known book, I Can Jump Puddles (1955) is the first of a three-part autobiography. The other two books are This is the Grass (1962) and In Mine Own Heart (1963).
When Marshall was six years old he contracted polio leaving him with a physical disability that grew worse as he grew older. From an early age, he resolved to be a writer, and in I Can Jump Puddles he demonstrated an almost total recall of his childhood in Noorat. The characters and places of his book are thinly disguised from real life: Mount Turalla is Mount Noorat, Lake Turalla is Lake Keilambete, the Curruthers are the Blacks, Mrs. Conlon is Mary Conlon of Dixie, Terang, and his best friend, Joe from the books, is Leo Carmody. Australian poet and contemporary, Hal Porter wrote in 1965 that Marshall is:
... the warmest and most centralized human being ... To walk with ease and nonchalance the straight, straight line between appearing tragic and appearing willfully brave is a feat so complex I should not like to have to rake in the dark for the super-bravery to accomplish it.
Marshall wrote numerous short stories, mainly set in the bush. He also wrote newspaper columns and magazine articles. He traveled widely in Australia and overseas. He also collected and published Indigenous Australian stories and legends.
Marshall died in 1984. His remains are interred at Nillumbik (Diamond Creek) Cemetery, Victoria, Australia.
Television series
In 1981 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced a nine-part mini-series of Marshall's autobiographical stories. The actor, Adam Garnett, won the 1982 Logie Awards for Best Performance by a Juvenile, for his role as Alan Marshall in the series.
Recognition
In 1985 the Shire of Eltham, where Marshall had lived for many years, established the annual Alan Marshall Short Story Competition for emergent writers. In 1937, he completed his first novel, How Beautiful Are Thy Feet, which remained unpublished until 1949.