Bulletin

Issue: January/February 2006

People

Honours for Inga Clendinnen

La Trobe University Emeritus Scholar, historian and author, Inga Clendinnen, has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in this year’s Australia Day Honours List for ‘addressing issues of fundamental concern to Australian society and contributing to shaping public debate on conflicting contemporary issues’.

The award comes after she received one of Australia’s leading literary prizes, the 2005 Medal of the Australian Society of Authors, announced late last year.

Awarded every two years to recognised authors for their contribution to Australian public life, it was last won by Tim Winton in 2003.

Dr Clendinnen is ‘an internationally recognised historian and writer whose work continues to surprise readers with its depth of knowledge and breadth of interests’ the award citation says. She demonstrates ‘extraordinary research skills, empathy for others and a dedication to the craft of writing,’

A leading scholar on Aztec and Mayan cultures, Dr Clendinnen taught at La Trobe University for 20 years.

Her books include Reading the Holocaust, a New York Times ‘Best Book of the Year’ in 1999 and winner of the New South Wales Premier’s General History Award. Tiger’s Eye, was published in 2000, as was True Stories, based on her ABC Boyer Lectures about Indigenous lives.

Last year Dr Clendinnen was the first Australian awarded the US-based Kiriyama Prize for non-fiction for her book, Dancing with Strangers (2003), which deals with the first years of European settlement in New South Wales and also won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction.

The Society of Authors award coincided with another honour – the launch at the National Library in Canberra of a celebratory volume on Dr Clendinnen’s contribution to writing and scholarship. The volume features contributions by La Trobe Professor of History, Alan Frost, and Adjunct Professor of English, Morag Fraser.