Jean Bedford
Author of Sister Kate
About the Author
Series
Works by Jean Bedford
Crime and Tide 1 copy
Finding Fire 1 copy
The Cat's First Reader 1 copy
Associated Works
Regarding Jane Eyre: Writers Respond to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1997) — Contributor — 17 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Bedford, Jean
- Other names
- Bedford, Jean Gladys Agnes
- Birthdate
- 1946-02-04
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- Australia
- Birthplace
- Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Illawarra, New South Wales, Australia
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia - Education
- Monash University (BA)
University of Papua New Guinea - Occupations
- teacher
journalist
publisher
lecturer
novelist
short-story writer - Relationships
- Corris, Peter (husband)
Members
Reviews
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 17
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 168
- Popularity
- #126,679
- Rating
- 3.2
- Reviews
- 9
- ISBNs
- 29
Jean Bedford's career includes working as a teacher, journalist, editor, publisher, a lecturer in creative writing, an awards judge, and a literary consultant for the Australian Film Commission. Many of us in Australia know her as co-founder and co-editor, with Linda Funnell, of the Newtown Review of Books.
As an author, Jean Bedford (b.1946) may be best known for her recent crime fiction, but I know her from her fine novel Sister Kate (1987), recently re-released through the University of Melbourne’s Untapped program. (See my review). But if you keep your eyes peeled in second-hand shops, and maybe in libraries, you may stumble on some of her other published fiction:
A Lease of Summer is set in Papua New Guinea as it transitions from a colony of Australia to independence. (Yes, that's correct, Britain shed its colonies in the wake of WW2, but Australia hung onto its colony until 1975. Read more about it here.) This is the blurb:
The expat community is concentrated in the university, where Helen's husband David is an archaeologist among a miscellany of academics whose work is being hijacked to prepare the locals to take over in the professions. Helen is shocked to hear Ralph — a racist old fossil from the Maths department — pouring scorn on the readiness of his students, but she later hears more temperately expressed reservations about the literacy standards of the replacement teachers. There are some very smart, sophisticated locals in this milieu, but these future leaders of the independent state were educated in Australian boarding schools and universities, or elsewhere overseas. It was common knowledge in the 1970s that as administrators of the colony for well over half a century, Australia had failed to prepare PNG for independence. (Which was not a reason not to grant it, but a reason to provide sustained support thereafter.)
Helen may be 'well-meaning' as the blurb suggests, but she's a rather shallow young woman, preoccupied by the chaos of her personal life. (She is not much inconvenienced by her toddler Bea, because there is no shortage of people willing to look after her at any time.) Although she purports to want to learn and understand the people and their culture, she is more interested in gossip and innuendo, and there's plenty of that to keep everyone busy.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/05/09/a-lease-of-summer-1990-by-jean-bedford/… (more)