John Morrison
John Gordon Morrison, born on January 29, 1904, in Sunderland, England, was a significant Australian writer known for his impactful depictions of the working class. After leaving school at fourteen, he began his career as a junior assistant curator at a local library, which sparked his lifelong passion for literature and the environment. Seeking adventure, he emigrated to Australia at nineteen and undertook various labor-intensive jobs, experiences that profoundly influenced his writing. Morrison's literary career gained momentum after World War II, during which he became politically active in the Communist Party and published his first collection of stories in 1947.
His work is characterized by a stark realism that addresses moral dilemmas faced by workers under capitalism, often reflecting the exploitation and solidarity of the working class. Throughout the years, he received recognition for his contributions, including the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society for his collection *Twenty-Three*. After a heart attack in the mid-1960s shifted his focus, Morrison predominantly published nonfiction that explored economic issues and environmental concerns. His legacy includes the prestigious Patrick White Award, received in 1986, highlighting his influence and commitment to representing the struggles of the Australian working class until his death on May 11, 1998.
Subject Terms
John Morrison
English-born Australian novelist, essayist, and short fiction writer.
- Born: January 29, 1904
- Birthplace: Sunderland, England
- Died: May 11, 1998
- Place of death: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Biography
John Gordon Morrison was born on January 29, 1904, in the working-class town of Sunderland in northeast England. His father, half blind from an injury in World War I, worked as a foreman for a telegraph construction concern. As a child, Morrison read voraciously, initially the adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson. As he matured he discovered the psychological realism of French novelist Honoré de Balzac and Russian playwright Anton Chekhov and ultimately the sea adventures of Polish author Joseph Conrad.
Typical for his economic situation, Morrison left school at the age of fourteen. He took a job as junior assistant curator at the Sunderland Central Public Library, a multipurpose facility that included a small art museum and a natural history museum devoted to local flora and fauna, where Morrison would foster his lifelong love of the environment. Primarily Morrison read; teaching himself to type, he experimented with original stories. After a succession of jobs, principally as a gardener, Morrison at age nineteen undertook what he perceived as a great adventure: taking advantage of government subsidies to relocate to Australia.
Over the next ten years, Morrison worked numerous labor- intensive jobs, most prominently as a ranch hand in the forbidding Outback and then as a dockworker in Melbourne during World War II, all the while crafting stories, even completing the draft of a first novel. During these difficult years, Morrison experienced firsthand the exploitation of workers, the corruption of the moneyed class, the harsh racism encouraged by poverty, the solidarity among the blue-collar class, and the right of every worker to feel the dignity and reward of work, themes that would come to shape his stories.
After World War II, Morrison became politically active in the Communist Party even as his first stories, grim and realistic depictions of the working class, began to appear. His first collection was published in 1947. Its success secured Morrison a government grant to write, and he left the docks in 1949 to write full time. Hounded by a government investigation into the communist party in the mid-1950s, Morrison never abandoned his commitment to the socialist ideals and continued to publish stories about moral and ethical dilemmas, usually unwinnable, faced by workers compelled to adjust to the bleak economic conditions and class oppression of capitalism. In the tradition of social realism, the stories were written without literary ornamentation. They reflected Morrison’s pitch-perfect ear for working-class dialogue and a sensitivity to the symbolic import of everyday objects.
By the mid-1960s, Morrison was nationally recognized for his compassionate depictions of workers—his collection Twenty-Three won the coveted Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society. After a heart attack redirected his writing energies, Morrison for the next two decades published largely nonfiction. His essays—mostly published in periodicals—tackled economic issues head-on. They expressed his protective concern for the Australian environment and shared his experiences as an immigrant, a communist, and a worker. A lifetime of writing was recognized in 1986 with the prestigious Patrick White Award, an award sponsored by the estate of the Australian Nobelist that recognizes distinguished Australian writing neglected by Australia’s critical establishment.
When Morrison died on May 11, 1998, at ninety-four, he was hailed as the conscience of the Australian working class. He eloquently depicted the struggle by workers to claim identity and dignity against oppressive social and economic forces that can easily destroy the human spirit.
Author Works
Long Fiction:
The Creeping City, 1949
Port of Call, 1950
Short Fiction:
Sailors Belong Ships, 1947
Black Cargo, 1955
Twenty-Three, 1962
John Morrison, Selected Stories, 1972
North Wind, 1982
Stories of the Waterfront, 1984
This Freedom: Short Stories, 1985
The Best Stories of John Morrison, 1988
Nonfiction:
Australian by Choice, 1973
The Happy Warrior, 1987
Bibliography
Cranston, C. A. "Morrison, John (1904–98)." Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, edited by Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2005, p. 1044. Brief overview of Morrison's work.
Galimond, Paul. "John Morrison: Writer of Proletarian Realism." Sydney Review of Books, 11 Aug. 2015, http://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/john-morrison-writer-of-proletarian-life/. Accessed 29 June 2017. Lengthy article about the development of Morrison's brand of socialist realism in his short stories.
Indyk, Ivor. "The Economics of Realism: John Morrison." Meanjin, no. 46, 1987, pp. 385–93. Article in an Australian literary journal by literature professor Ivor Indyk.
Phillips, A. A. "The Short Stories of John Morrison." Overland, no. 58, Winter 1974, pp. 31–35. Article in an Australian literary journal by literary critic A. A. Phillips.