SOURCE: Wilding, Michael, and Giulia Giuffré. “An Interview with Michael Wilding.” Southerly 46, no. 3 (September 1986): 313–21.

In the following interview, Wilding and Giuffré discuss the Wilding's personal background and the major themes and subject matter in his writings.

[Giuffré]: You came to Australia from England in your twenties. Did you have any expectations about Australia?

[Wilding]: No, I didn't know what it was going to be like, I didn't know what anything was. I'd grown up in a country town in England and that's all I knew.

Did you have a protected youth?

No, just poor!

You were from a working-class background. Does that matter?

It matters in Europe where everything is so determined by class in a more obvious way than I guess it is in Australia or America.

Was that another stimulus to come out here then?

Well, it was something to get away from, sure. In immediate...