There are many things that might happen when a woman is experiencing a long dark night of the being whisked off to sunny Tuscany is rarely one of them. If only it was, Janine Burke suggests in her award-winning second novel. First published in 1986, Second Sight came out years before Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, another book that extolls Italy’s revitalising properties, though in a very different way. It won the Vance Palmer Award for Fiction in 1987. Janine Burke is an award-winning novelist, art historian and biographer. Her books include Australian Women 1840–1940 (1980), Dear The Letters of Joy Hester and Sunday Reed (1994), Australian A Life of Albert Tucker (2002), which was shortlisted for the 2002 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award, and The Heart Sunday Reed and Heide (2004), and, most recently, My Forests (2021).
Author
Dr. Janine Burke is an art historian and biographer, and has written eight books of fiction and art history. She has degrees from the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University. She was a lecturer in art history until she resigned from her job to become a full-time writer, which she has been for the last ten years. Her books include Australian Women Artists, 1840-1940, Second Sight, which won the 1987 Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction, and Company of Images, which was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year award and the Miles Franklin Award. Her novel for teenagers, Journey to Bright Water, is published by Mammoth. She also contributed to Libby Hawthorn's anthology of short stories, The Blue Dress. Janine has curated exhibitions of historical and contemporary art, and currently holds a research fellowship at Monash University. She lives in Melbourne, where she regularly reviews, lectures and broadcasts on radio.
