First Edition. xix, 260 p., [8] p. of plates : ill., map, ports. ; 21 cm. #210622
Hungerford, T. A. G. (Thomas Arthur Guy), 1915-2011. | Authors, Australian — 20th century — Biography. | Journalists — Australia — 20th century — Biography . | Australian literature — 20th century.
Thomas Arthur Guy Hungerford, AM (5 May 1915 – 19 June 2011) was an Australian writer, noted for his World War II novel The Ridge and the River, and his short stories that chronicle growing up in South Perth, Western Australia during the Great Depression.
After the war, Hungerford was a press secretary for Billy Hughes for three weeks. Upon leaving, Hungerford wrote to Hughes: “I will never work for you again. I’d rather go to bed with a sabre-toothed tiger”.[1] He then joined the Australia News and Information Bureau, and afterwards was a freelancer. He later worked as a press secretary to Western Australian Premiers John Tonkin and Sir Charles Court.
Hungerford began writing as a teenager and had his first published short story in 1942 in the Sydney Bulletin. His first volume of short fiction, Stories from Suburban Road, depict life during the Great Depression in the Perth riverside suburb of South Perth.
Novels
The Ridge and the River (1950)
Riverslake (1953)
Sowers in the Wind (1954)
Shake the Golden Bough (1963)
Sowers in the Wind, was held back by publisher Angus & Robertson because it dealt with the economic and sexual exploitation of the Japanese after the War by Australian occupation forces. The novel won the 1949 Sydney Morning Herald prize for literature but was not published until 1954.
Monash University’s Robin Gerster told The Age in 2002: “Hungerford… wrote very perceptively and affectionately about the Japanese, which is not a bad effort for someone who fought them.”
Short stories
Wong Chu and the Queen’s Letterbox (1976)
The Only One Who Forgot (1951)
What Happened to Joseph? (2005, a collection of short stories & poems)
Drama
Stories from Suburban Road
The Day It All Ended
Children’s books
Swagbelly Birdsnatcher and the Prince of Siam
Autobiography
Stories From Suburban Road (1983)
A Knockabout with a Slouch Hat
Red Rover All Over