Barbara Blackman, a blind 87-year-old alumna of The University of Queensland, has delivered her first book of prose in 20 years.
All My Januaries is a selection of essays devoted to various pleasures in her life – coffee, perfume, solitude, words, as well as reflections on her time in Paris.
Barbara is a music-lover, essayist, librettist, arts patron, muse and poet. She has been blind since her early twenties.
Rachel Crawford of UQP said the book was designed as a memoir in essays, or to be dipped into at leisure for “refreshing wisdom and wordplay”.
“In the 1940s, she was the youngest member of Barjai, the avant-garde writers group of which Thea Astley was a member,” she said
“She and her husband of 30 years, Charles Blackman, moved in Australian and international art circles, living in Melbourne, London, Paris and beyond, mixing with the brightest minds of the era.”
Through essays devoted to various pleasures of Barbara’s life – coffee, perfume, solitude, words – as well as reflections on her time in Paris, a biting essay titled ‘Do You Like Being Blind?’, and a beautiful imagined letter from the twin who died in infancy, Barbara invites readers to share in the thrills and challenges of a life well lived.
Barbara was born and raised in Brisbane. She attended Brisbane State High School before studying at UQ. In the 1950s she lived in Melbourne with her husband and moved in Australian art circles with contemporaries Arthur Boyd, Joy Hester, John and Sunday Reed, Clifton Pugh, John Perceval, Mirka Mora and many more.
Barbara has published a number of books, including The Little Lives of Certain Chairs, a Table or Two and Other Inanimates of Our Acquaintance (UQP, 1968), Barbara and Charles Blackman Talk About Food (Rigby, 1979), and Glass after Glass: Autobiographical Reflections (Penguin 1997).
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She has also published a book of verse, Dogs and Doggerel (Halstead Press, 2011), with illustrations by Cheryl Westenburg. In 2007, Portrait of a Friendship, a selection of letters from her 50-year friendship with Judith Wright, was published by Melbourne University Press.
Now 87 and living in Canberra, Barbara Blackman still writes, is devoted to music and is a generous patron of the arts. Barbara will be speaking about her new book at an event in conjunction with the UQ Art Museum. View the event details and register here.
More from UQP can be found here.
Media: UQP, Rachel Crawford, rachelc@uqp.edu.au, 07 3346 7932.
