Katharine Susannah Prichard (1883–1969) was an Australian novelist and writer of short stories, plays, and verses. She was a co-founding member of the Communist Party of Australia.
Born in Levuka, on Ovalau, Fiji, where her father was editor of the Fiji Times, Prichard spent her youth in Tasmania. After studying at South Melbourne College, she began working as a newspaper journalist in Melbourne and Sydney. In 1912, she went to London as a freelance journalist. Her first novel, The Pioneers (1915,) won the ‘colonial’ section of a publisher’s contest and was filmed in Australia the following year.
Prichard returned to Australia in 1916 and became a founding member of the Australian Communist Party (1920.) Her socialist convictions infused much of her subsequent work, particularly her compelling trilogy set in the West Australian goldfields, The Roaring Nineties (1946,) Golden Miles (1948,) and Winged Seeds (1950.) Prichard’s last novel, Subtle Flame (1967,) studied the conflicts facing a newspaper editor.
Prichard also wrote poems, plays and short stories, and an autobiography, Child of the Hurricane (1963.) Her son, Ric Prichard Throssell, wrote a biography of her, Wild Weeds and Wind Flowers (1975.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Katharine Susannah Prichard
Don’t sacrifice your life to work and ideals. The most important things in life are human relations. I found that out too late.
—Katharine Susannah Prichard
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