Died 9 June 2013, Adelaide, Australia Books A Better Class of Sunset: Collected Works of Christopher Pearson | ||
Christopher Pearson (28 August 1951 – 9 June 2013) was an Australian journalist who wrote for The Australian and who for many years beforehand had edited a monthly cultural magazine, The Adelaide Review.
Although born in Sydney, he spent most of his life in Adelaide. He received a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from Flinders University as well as a Graduate Diploma in Education from the University of Adelaide. A member of the Council of the National Museum of Australia, he was also on the board of the government-owned SBS television station. In addition, he served as a speech writer to the Prime Minister, John Howard, and was also a friend and mentor to another Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.
He was employed with The Australian, a national broadsheet. There he wrote commentaries and articles that covered a wide variety of cultural and religious matters pertaining to Australian society. He had, on occasion, discussed international issues such as global warming.
In a September 2009 piece in The Australian, Pearson wrote about how he reconciled his homosexuality with his Catholicism. Pearson had converted to Catholicism in 1999.
A selection of Pearson's writings, edited by Nick Cater and Helen Baxendale, was published in 2014 under the title A Better Class of Sunset, with introductions by Tony Abbott and Jack Snelling, both of whom had previously written or spoken admiringly of his work.