A Kindness Cup (1974) is a novel by Australian author Thea Astley.[1] It won the 1975 The Age Book of the Year Award.[2]
 First edition | |
| Author | Thea Astley |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Nelson Books, Australia |
Publication date | 1974 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 154 |
| ISBN | 0170050157 |
| Preceded by | The Acolyte |
| Followed by | An Item from the Late News |
Plot summary
editThe novel is set in a cane-country town on the north Queensland coast. It deals with a wave of racist brutality in the 1860s and the attempts, some twenty or so years later, to rectify the wrongs caused.
Reviews
editMalcolm Pettigrove in The Canberra Times was not overly impressed with the book stating: "When Miss Astley drops the prose of the stylist and begins to function simply as a writer with a tale to tell her work becomes stark, tense, and most effectively dramatic."[3]
Kate Grenville reread the book in 2018, upon it being reissued. She called Astley "ahead of her time" and that "Thirty years beforehand she had known what some of us were only just waking up to: that our own history provides a powerful engine for fiction, and that the voice of fiction can say the unspoken about that history."[4] Steve Walker, of Stuff wrote "Astley's work is characterised by her irony and her unflinching scrutiny of social injustice. In A Kindness Cup, she was at the top of her impressive form."[5]
References
edit- ^ "Austlit - A Kindness Cup by Thea Astley". Austlit. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
- ^ ""Book award"". The Canberra Times, 22 November 1975, p3. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
- ^ "God and Mammon in the Cane" by Malcolm Pettigrove, The Canberra Times, 31 January 1975, p9
- ^ Grenville, Kate (24 May 2018). "A Kindness Cup by Thea Astley | An essay by Kate Grenville". Sydney Review of Books. Archived from the original on 20 January 2020. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
- ^ Walker, Steve. "Book review: A Kindness Cup, by Thea Astley". Stuff. Retrieved 20 January 2020.