‘Radical thinking involves a transformation of the personal and well as the political spheres. Jeff Sparrow’s wonderful biography of Lesbia Harford draws a tender and wise portrait of the work, passion and intellectual drive that this project requires.’ Sophie Cunningham
‘Sparrow gives Lesbia Harford her rightful place as a gifted poet and courageous radical who, at a time of immense political and social turmoil, defied the fates to forge her own path. A splendid biography.’ Jacqueline Kent
‘Lesbia Harford is a somewhat paradoxical figure: a born poet who did not seek publication, an unlikely activist driven to stand in solidarity with the poor, a woman who hungered for love and lived in the shadow of death. Sparrow brings Harford’s activism vividly to life, fleshing out the story of the radical movements she embraced with striking portraits of the unionists, socialists, anarchists and factory workers whose lives were interwoven with hers. At the same time, he draws on her poetry – which, as he shows, was ahead of its time in both style and subject matter – to evoke something of her own elusive interiority. It’s a fascinating account of an extraordinary woman, and of a time of social and political ferment with uncomfortable parallels to our own.’ Ann-Marie Priest
The story of a daring and ardent Australian woman of letters
Barely known in her lifetime, Lesbia Harford is now celebrated for innovative writing on female desire, revolutionary change and the minutiae of daily life – work that hints at ways of loving, living and writing yet to be fully explored.
Born with a heart condition that ensured she’d die young, Harford chose a life of passion and commitment to her principles, becoming one of Australia’s first women lawyers and then abandoning law for factory work. As a pioneering trade-union leader, she campaigned for women’s rights and joined the banned Industrial Workers of the World, risking a jail term that would have killed her. She fell in love with women and men as she moved through revolutionary Sydney and bohemian Melbourne, mixing with figures such as Katharine Susannah Prichard, Vance and Nettie Palmer, Guido Baracchi, Bob Menzies, John Curtin and John Cain Snr. Through her novel and poems, she melded radical politics with a modernist sensibility, decades ahead of her time.
Against the backdrop of the Great War and the events that created modern Australia, this first full-length biography of Harford shows why one of our best writers still matters a century on, and what her life reveals about art, politics and hope in a time of global upheaval.
Jeff Sparrow discusses Lesbia Harford’s extraordinary legacy on ABC Nightlife
