Articles Re Clift & Johnston
This page curates various ‘pieces’ about Charmian Clift, George Johnston and Martin Johnston, published over more than twenty years.
Liars, Inventers, Embroiderers — Rewriting the Life and Myth of Charmian Clift
Nadia Wheatley, published in Australian Book Review, December 2025
My recent discovery of new information about the back story of Charmian Clift’s parents (whom she described as ‘liars, inventers and embroiderers) caused me to revise my understanding of Clift’s childhood, and her unfinished autobiographical novella The End of the Morning. SPOILER ALERT: Described as an ‘audacious swindler’, 24-year-old Amy Currie (who later became Charmian Clift’s mother) spent nine months in Long Bay Gaol.
Liars, Inventers, Embroiderers — Rewriting the Life and Myth of Charmian Clift - PDF
Afterward, Honour’s Mimic
Nadia Wheatley, published in Charmian Clift, Honour’s Mimic, NewSouth 2025
Charmian Clift’s second solo novel, Honour’s Mimic (first published in 1964 and republished on 2025), was inspired by the face of a sponge diver fleetingly seen on the remote Greek island of Kalymnos, where the author had made her first home in Greece. In this ‘Afterward’, I describe the writing of this groundbreaking work, which challenges stereotypes of class and culture in the genre of the romance novel.
Afterword, The End of the Morning
Nadia Wheatley, published in Charmian Clift, The End of the Morning, NewSouth 2024
Some six months before her untimely death in 1969, Charmian Clift described this unfinished autobiographical work as ‘the novel that every writer wans to do’. In fact, she had been engaged on it since the beginning of her career. In this ‘Afterword’ I describe the protracted process of this milestone book (published for the first time in 2024), and explain why it mattered so much to its author.
Respect A Long Time Coming — Celebrating Charmian Clift’s Centenary
Nadia Wheatley, published in Spectrum, August 2023
In this piece published on what might have been Charmian Clift’s 100th birthday, I review her career, and its extraordinary resurgence over recent years, manifest in the republication of her novels and essays, in the translations into Spanish and Grek of her travel memoirs, and now in the publication of her unfinished autobiographical masterpiece, The End of the Morning.
Respect A Long Time Coming — Celebrating Charmian Clift’s Centenary - PDF
Charmian Clift: Living the rich full life
Nadia Wheatley, published in Antipodes, October 2023
The Melbourne-based bilingual Greek-Australian journal Antipodes commissioned this piece for its special issue acknowledging the contribution made by Philhellenes to Greek-Australian cultural life. In it, I describe how Clift connected with the Greek sense of zoe (life), with all its kefi (exuberance).
Martin Clift Johnston, Man of Two Nations
Nadia Wheatley, published in Antipodes, October 2023
The Melbourne-based bilingual Greek-Australian journal Antipodes commissioned this piece for its special issue acknowledging the contribution made by Philhellenes to Greek-Australian cultural life. In it I present Martin as being not so much a philhellene as a truly Greek-Australian, or an Australian-born Greek.
Somewhere other than Hydra?
Why did Clift and Johnston leave their luxurious London life in 1954 and go to live in Greece? And what would have happened if they had made their new home somewhere other than the island of Hydra?
Nadia Wheatley, published in the Hydra Book Club Journal, October 2023.
A Greek Odyssey (The Song of the Mermaid)
Here I describe my June 2022 visit to the island of Kalymnos for the launch of the Greek translation of Charmian Clift’s first solo book, Mermaid Singing, written and set on the island. You can find some additional photos of the launch and of Clift’s Kalymnos home on my News page.
Nadia Wheatley, published in The Good Weekend, 29 October 2022.
Introduction to Sneaky Little Revolutions, Selected Essays of Charmian Clift
Nadia Wheatley, published by NewSouth, 2022.
Through the turbulent and transformative years of the 1960s, Charmian Clift made what she called ‘sneaky little revolutions’ in the column she wrote for the women’s pages of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Herald. In the introduction to this new edition of her selected essays, I place these radical and lyrical pieces in the context of their time.
Remembering Charmian Clift
Nadia Wheatley, published in The Weekend Australian, July 2019.
Fifty years on, the anniversary of the essayist’s death is an opportunity to celebrate the weekly ‘revolutions’ that played a significant part in the transformative change that was going on in our country during the 1960s.
Read the full article online
Author Note to The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift
Nadia Wheatley, HarperCollins, 2001.
In this preface to my biography of Charmian Clift, I set out my historiographical aims and methods. In particular I discuss my own status, as both insider and outsider to the family story, my feminist approach to the subject, and my aim ‘to present the life as Charmian herself lived it’.
High Valley Afterword
Nadia Wheatley, Ligature Digital Publishing, 2021.
High Valley, written collaboratively by Charmian Clift and George Johnston, won the Sydney Morning Herald Literary Prize in 1948. In this Afterword, written in 2021 for a new edition of the novel, I describe how the couple came to meet and fall in love, and how they wrote this novel together during the honeymoon period of their long partnership.
Walk to the Paradise Gardens Introduction
Nadia Wheatley, Ligature Digital Publishing, 2021.
Charmian Clift’s first solo novel, Walk to the Paradise Gardens is set in a fictionalised version of the coastal township of Kiama, where the author grew up. In this Introduction, written in 2021 for a new edition of the novel, I describe the writing process, and suggest something of Clift’s complex relationship with her hometown.
Lies and Silences
Nadia Wheatley, Plenary, Conference on Biography, National Library of Australia, 20 October 2001. Published in Meanjin ‘On Biography’, Vol 61 No 1, 2002
Charmian Clift described her family as being ‘tremendous liars’. There are also significant silences in her biographical record. In this piece — originally given as a paper at the conference ‘The Secret Self: Exploring Biography and Autobiography' (National Library of Australia, 20 October 2001) — I describe the process and ethics of writing the story of Clift’s life.
An Australian Alter Ego: The 50th Anniversary of George Johnston’s My Brother Jack
Nadia Wheatley, The Monthly, May 2014.
Within a few years of its publication, My Brother Jack became more of a legend than a mere piece of fiction. To mark the 50th anniversary of the novel’s publication, I went to the Melbourne suburb where the author grew up to explore the origins of this Australian classic.
Remembering Martin Johnston
Nadia Wheatley, uploaded to Martin Johnston memorial website, June 2020. Published in Martin Johnston, Beautiful Objects, Ligature, 2020.
A friend once asked me: ‘Did you realise that in Martin Johnston you chose the most damaged boy that you could find?’ Of course I didn’t. In this recollection, written to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Martin’s death, I reflect on the time we spent together in Sydney and Greece in the 1970s.