This section contains 3,533 words (approx. 12 pages at 300 words per page) |
Dictionary of Literary Biography on (Ellen) Dymphna Cusack
Dymphna Cusack regarded herself, in Jean-Paul Sartre's phrase, as an "écrivain engagé"--one for whom the pen was mightier than the sword. According to Andrea Lofthouse in Who's Who of Australian Women (1982), Cusack said,
I believe that a writer should be in the vanguard of society, analysing her community, its influence on people, and describing through her characters its benign or malign results. I am a socialist, believing that no country or individual should own less than another. As a humanist, I believe that all persons are equally important in life.
Diminutive in stature, with a fragile constitution frequently ravaged by remitting/relapsing symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS; her "dog's disease"), she was, nonetheless, a courageous and high-profile antinuclear activist in the World Peace Movement during the Cold War era.
A committed social reformer, she wrote her own interpretation of living history as she dramatized the...
This section contains 3,533 words (approx. 12 pages at 300 words per page) |