Once an Australian

The four Australians featured in this book - Barry Humphries, Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes - are all writers and performers who decided to leave their native land in the late 1950s or early 1960s and to pursue their "brilliant careers" abroad. Ian Britain's profiles of their careers concentrate on the reasons for their expatriatism and consider what aspects of their Australian identity they have retained. His study of this generation of Australian expatriates combines elements of biography, cultural criticism and social history. The profiles are based on a wide range of their subjects' writings and public pronouncements in the press, or on radio and television, stretching back over nearly half a century. These sources, the author maintains, help to illuminate the inner life and abiding preoccupations of this famous foursome more effectively than any personal interviews with them. As well as charting the life and work of four vibrant individuals, Ian Britain's book seeks to suggest what is distinctive about them as a generational group, and contains some reflections on how far they may be seen as the "last expatriates" - the most vivid flowers of a dying breed.