Ruth Park
Ruth Park was a prominent New Zealand-born writer, born in 1923 in Auckland. Her early life was shaped by the nomadic lifestyle of her family, often moving due to her father's work as a road builder, which instilled a deep connection to nature and influenced her literary perspective. After moving to Sydney in 1942, Park became a successful journalist and novelist, known for her ability to weave history and adventure into her storytelling. Her debut novel, *The Harp in the South* (1948), gained significant acclaim and became a best-seller, leading to adaptations in various formats, including television.
Park also made notable contributions to children's literature, with works like *The Muddle-Headed Wombat* and *Playing Beatie Bow*, the latter of which won multiple awards and was adapted into a film. Throughout her career, she demonstrated versatility as an editor, journalist, and writer across genres, producing novels, radio plays, and autobiographies. Her work has been celebrated for its insightful character portrayals and imaginative narratives, making her a significant figure in Australian literature. Ruth Park's legacy continues to influence and resonate with readers around the world, with her books translated into numerous languages.
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Ruth Park
Author
- Born: August 24, 1923
- Birthplace: Auckland, New Zealand
Biography
Ruth Park was born in 1923 in Auckland, New Zealand. Because her Scottish father was a road and bridge builder, when she was young the family often lived in tent camps in remote areas undergoing development. Park spent a lot of her childhood playing alone in the forest, and later observed that this exposure to nature, as well as the unavailability of books and television, shaped her adult sense of how she fit in the world.
When the Depression hit and road-building all but ceased, the family moved to Auckland to live with relatives. Park attended St. Benedict’s College and the University of Auckland, and then found a position as a journalist with the Auckland Star. At the Star, and later at the Auckland Zealandia, Park edited the children’s pages, and contributed stories and poems of her own. In 1942 she moved to Sydney, Australia, and married D’Arcy Niland, a playwright and journalist. The couple, who managed to support their family solely through writing, had five children: Anne, Rory, Patrick, Deborah, and Kilmeny.
Although the family’s steadiest income came from a long association with Australia’s ABCradio, for which the couple wrote dozens of plays, Park is perhaps best known as a writer of novels for adults. Her first book, The Harp in the South (1948), was a best-selling story of Irish immigrants living in Sydney, Australia. She published six more novels for adults, including the first of two best-selling sequels to The Harp in the South, before trying her hand at writing for younger readers.
In 1961, she published two young adult novels, The Hole in the Hill and The Ship’s Cat, both set, like much of her fiction, in the Pacific. In 1962 she published The Muddle-Headed Wombat, which led to a series of fifteen picture books illustrated by Noela Young and a long-running radio program. Park collaborated with her husband on radio plays; an autobiography of their early writing years, The Drums Go Bang (1956); and on a television play, No Decision (1964), before his death in 1967. After Niland died, Park lived in London for a time, and then settled on Norfolk Island in 1973. There she wrote her best-known young adult novel, Playing Beatie Bow (1980), in which a trouble adolescent girl finds herself sent back in time to the Sydney of 1873.
Throughout a long career, Park was an editor, a journalist, and a writer of novels, children’s books, radio plays, stage plays, travel guides, educational materials, and autobiographies. Park has been recognized for her ability to combine history and adventure with insightful and sensitive character portrayals. The Harp in the South, an adult novel, won first prize in the Sydney Morning Herald novel competition, was translated into thirty-seven languages, and was adapted as a television miniseries. Playing Beatie Bow, a young adult novel, won several awards, including the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and was made into a film in 1986. Park’s children’s books have been translated into many European languages, as well as Japanese and Chinese.