George Johnston
George Johnston was an influential Australian writer born in 1912 in Elsternwick, Melbourne. He began his career as a newspaper reporter for The Argus, where his experiences led him to write several nonfiction books about shipping during World War II. Johnston gained recognition as a war correspondent, traveling extensively across regions such as New Guinea and China, which informed his later literary works, including the notable Journey Through Tomorrow. His literary journey took a significant turn when he collaborated with Charmain Clift, resulting in the award-winning novel High Valley.
Despite facing personal and financial challenges, Johnston found success with his semi-autobiographical novel, My Brother Jack, which explored themes of identity and betrayal. His later years were marked by health struggles and the tragic loss of Clift, yet he continued to write until his death in 1970. Johnston's works remain significant in Australian literature, with his trilogy being critically acclaimed and continuously in print. His contributions to literature and journalism earned him the Order of the British Empire, solidifying his legacy in the literary community.
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George Johnston
Writer
- Born: July 20, 1912
- Birthplace: Australia
- Died: July 24, 1970
- Place of death: New South Wales, Australia
Biography
George Johnston was born in 1912, the third child of John and Minnie Wright Johnston. After a happy working-class childhood in Elsternwick, Melbourne, Australia, Johnston earned an intermediate certificate from Brighton Technical School and began training as a newspaper reporter for Melbourne’s The Argus. Johnston’s reporting led him to write three nonfiction books concerning shipping during World War II, Grey Gladiator (1941), Battle of the Seaways (1941), and Australia at War (1942). He was then named a war correspondent and traveled to New Guinea, the United States, Sri Lanka, India, Burma, China, and Tibet. His travels and writing earned him much acclaim and served as the basis for several books, including Journey Through Tomorrow (1947), a groundbreaking study of Tibet.
Rejoining The Argus after the war, Johnston met Charmain Clift, a secretary and aspiring writer, and he left his wife and job so he and Clift could travel and pursue their literary careers. In this period, Johnston published his first novel, Moon at Perigree (1948), with little success, and also published a popular thriller, Death Takes Small Bites (1948), establishing a pattern of Johnston falling back on writing action thrillers when in need of money. His financial fortunes changed for the better when his and Clift’s collaborative novel High Valley(1949) won Australia’s most prestigious literary award, followed by Johnston taking an appointment to head the London office of Australian Associated Newspapers in 1951. In 1955, dissatisfied with his job and London life, Johnston quit and moved with Clift and their two children to a Greek island where he worked on his writing, published action thrillers for money, and drank and partied to excess with his visitors.
After a tough period of marital difficulties, a diagnosis of tuberculosis, the publication of several unsuccessful novels, and a failed move back to England, Johnston learned that his novel, Closer to the Sun (1960), depicting China’s refugee crisis in World War II, had been chosen as a selection of The Literary Guild of New York. Financially buoyed and full of confidence, Johnston wrote his masterpiece, My Brother Jack (1964), a loosely autobiographical confessional about an expatriate artist, David Meredith, betrayed by philistines in his native Australia, who becomes duplicitous and corrupt, compromising himself and his family.
Following the critical and popular success of My Brother Jack, Johnston moved back to Australia and attempted to make a trilogy from the novel by completing two subsequent novels. Although he finished the critically successful Clean Straw for Nothing (1969), struggles with his health, the end of his relationship with Clift, her suicide in 1969, and his death in 1970, prevented the completion of A Cartload of Clay, published posthumously in 1971. Before his death, Johnston was awarded the Order of the British Empire. Johnston’s artistic legacy has been further rewarded by his trilogy’s critical recognition; the three books have never gone out of print.