Nicholas Jose
Nicholas Jose was born in the United Kingdom in 1952, but spent his childhood in Australia, in Broken Hill, Traralgon, Perth and Adelaide.
Nicholas Jose has published short stories, novels and a book on English literature which originated as his doctoral thesis. Paper Nautilus (Penguin Books, Australia, 1987) and Avenue of Eternal Peace (Penguin Books, Australia, 1990) were written while he was living and working in Italy and China.
Black Sheep: Journey to Borroloola (Hardie Grant Publishing, Australia, 2003) is a highly original book - history, travelbook, memoir, quest - which sets out to discover Roger Jose, perhaps a distant relative, and his life in a remote Aboriginal community in Australia, reading world literature and evolving his own radical philosophy.
Jose has also written several novels, including his most recent Original Face (Giramondo Publishing, Australia, 2005), and The Red Thread (Hardie Grant Publishing, Australia, 2000), a seductive love story set in contemporary Shanghai. Jose's other novels include The Custodians (Pan Macmillan, Australia, 1998), The Rose Crossing (Penguin Books, Australia, 1995), Avenue of Eternal Peace (Penguin Books, Australia, 1990), and Rowena's Field (Rigby, Australia, 1984). He has published two collections of short stories, The Possession of Amber (University of Queensland Press, Australia, 1980) and Feathers or Lead (Penguin Books, Australia, 1986).
He co-translated The Finish Line by Sang Ye (University of Queensland Press, Australia, 1994) and The Ape Herd by Mang Ke (included in Poems for the Millennium, University of California Press, United States, 1998). He co-edited Picador New Writing 4 (1997).
His play Dead City, was performed in Sydney theatres in 1994.
Chinese Whispers, Cultural Essays was published by Wakefield Press in 1995. He acted as curatorial advisor to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney on the exhibitions Mao Goes Pop (1993) and ARTTAIWAN (1995) and co-edited ARTTAIWAN (1995).
Jose was cultural counsellor at the Australian Embassy, Beijing, 1987-1990, and has written widely on contemporary Asian and Australian culture. He was president of Sydney PEN, 2002-2005. He currently holds the chair of Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide and is general editor of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature (due for publication in 2009).