A Woman of the Future, first published in 1979, was David Ireland's best-selling sixth novel and his third to win the Miles Franklin Award.
An imaginative tour de force, it is the story of the young life of Anthea Hunt, from conception to sexual awakening. It is controversial and brilliant, and unlike anything else in Australian literature. Now published as a Text Classic, it features a new introduction from Kate Jennings.
David Ireland started out writing poetry and drama but then turned to fiction. His first novel, The Chantic Bird, was published in 1968. In the next decade he published five further novels, three of which won the Miles Franklin Award: The Unknown Industrial Prisoner, The Glass Canoe and A Woman of the Future. David Ireland was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1981. In 1985 he received the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for his novel Archimedes and the Seagull.
Kate Jennings is a poet, essayist, short-story writer and novelist. Her novels, Snake and Moral Hazard, were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. She has won the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. Born in rural New South Wales, she has lived in New York since 1979. Her most recent book is Trouble: Evolution of a Radical.
www.textclassics.com.au
'Immense originality, wit and gritty wisdom...David Ireland has reached the top.' Patrick White
'Superlative powers of observation...a very rewarding read.' Manning Clark
'A Woman of the Future is not just a novel, it is a phenomenon.' Douglas Stewart
'Remarkable...an extraordinary memoir of adolescence.' New York Times
'A brilliant, often mind-blowing excursion...the sexual scenes here are as deliberately shocking as any recent fiction.' Saturday Review
