Painted woman

by Sue Woolfe

Painted a totally engrossing story of the evolution of a woman painter, and her emergence from her father's tyranny to the freedom of artistic autonomy. 'Extraordinary, beautiful writing, like a bright light, glancing and flashing across a canvas.' Kate Grenville 'Dazzling...seething...truly splendid.' Robert Dessaix, Books and Writing

Genres: Novels, 20th Century

175 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Sue Woolfe has worked as a teacher, scriptwriter, TV subtitle editor, documentary maker and cook. She is the author of the bestselling novel about mathematics and motherhood, Leaning Towards Infinity, published in five countries and won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in 1996 and was shortlisted for many other prizes, including the Commonwealth Prize and the prestigious US TipTree Prize. She re-wrote it for the stage, and it’s been workshopped in New York and produced at the Ensemble, Sydney. It’s currently optioned to an American film producer.

Sue Woolfe’s other works include the novel Painted Woman, published in Australia in 1989 and in translation in France in 2008 (also produced twice as a stage play) and co-authored with Kate Grenville Making Stories: How Ten Australian Novels Were Written.

After attaining her BA, Sue taught at high schools and TAFE, and then became a journalist for Choice Magazine. Following huge sales of her best-selling textbook, Language and Literature, she bought 16mm film equipment and set up her own editing suite and wrote/produced or directed 44 short documentary films, many specially commissioned, and all of which sold to commercial TV channels or to SBS. Now, at Sydney University, she teaches fiction writing for post-graduates by a revolutionary method she calls “dangerous writing”, and has designed and coordinates a course to highlight the work of those film underdogs, the screenwriters. In this course, local screenwriting celebrities talk about the triumphs and tribulations of the craft.

Sue lives in Sydney with her partner and daughter.

Reviews

[Liv Uebergang · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Painted Woman was incredibly pretentious and over-written. Though quite a small book, it took me a long-ish time to read due to it being terribly boring.
That being said, I found the last 20 pages very engaging. If the rest of the book was written like the last 20 it would have been a solid 4/5. Alas that wasn’t the case.

[Lucca Beclu · Rating 2 out of 5]

i nearly liked this book in the final few chapters, but it was too few beautiful moments amongst many very difficult to read. no particularly likeable characters, a painful plot written in such a way i found myself having to reread most sentences to get a grasp of what was being said. my frustration at it outweighed my enjoyment.

[Winter Kuhaupt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyday that men continue to be little shits, I inch closer to the brink of warfare

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sublime writing with a spine tingling ending

[Kristel]

Un père ignoble pousse sa fille dans une certaine folie.