Occupation Writer Books Whoring Around | Role Author Name John Bryson Movies Secrets of the Jury Room | |
Genre Biography, fiction, non-fiction Awards CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction People also search for Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, Aviva Ziegler, Julian Russell | ||
Education University of Melbourne | ||
John Bryson AM (born 25 December 1935 in Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian author and former lawyer. He has written works of fiction, biography and non-fiction.
Contents
Life
Bryson was educated at the University of Melbourne, where he studied law.
Career
In 1971, after practising law for 10 years, first as a solicitor and later as a barrister, he became chairman and managing director of a Melbourne public company. In 1978, he rejoined the Victorian Bar. He was a member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council, later becoming acting chairman.
Works
Since 1973, Bryson's articles and stories have been published in Australian newspapers.
Bryson's best known work is his 1985 book Evil Angels which chronicles the story of Lindy Chamberlain's trial for murder, following the death of her baby daughter, Azaria. It was made into a film starring Meryl Streep in 1988. It was released under its original title, Evil Angels, in Australia and New Zealand and as A Cry in the Dark in other English-speaking territories, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa. It is also known by similar titles internationally.
Bryson is also the author of a 1981 collection of short fiction, Whoring Around, and a collection of reportage, Backstage at the Revolution. His novel of the Spanish Civil War, To the Death, Amic, was published by Viking in 1994 and as Hasta la Muerte, Amigo by Editorial Milenio Spain in 2006. In 2004 he originated and co-produced Secrets of the Juryroom, a documentary for SBS-TV.
In 2013 he was published in eBook format for both works of fiction and non-fiction. Many of the non-fictions titles included collections of articles he had published as a journalist.
Awards
1979 The Routine, one of the stories that was later included in Whoring Around, received the 1979 Patricia Hackett Award at the University of Western Australia
1985 Victorian Premier's Award for non-fiction
1986 Allen Lane Award
1986 Nettie Palmer Prize for Australian Nonfiction
1986 British Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger
2000, a panel of journalism schools included him in "The 100 Australian Journalists of the Century".
2014 appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for services to Australian literature, support for Indigenous youth, and community.