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Judah Waten
Judah Leon Waten AM (29 July 1911 – 29 July 1985) was an Australian novelist who was at one time seen as the voice of Australian migrant writing. Life and careerBorn in Odessa to a Russian-Jewish family, after a brief sojourn in Palestine,[1] Judah Waten arrived in Western Australia in 1914, where the family settled in Midland Junction, before shifting to Perth.[2] He attended Christian Brothers' College, Perth and, moving to Melbourne in 1926, University High School, Melbourne. He joined the Communist Party of Australia while still at school.[3] Between 1931 and 1933, he visited Europe, where he engaged in left-wing political activities in England, and spent three months in Wormwood Scrubs Prison. He wrote novels, short stories and a history of the Great Depression in Australia. He is best known for two books, his autobiographical novel, Alien Son, first published in 1952 and for Distant Land, a story about a Yiddish-speaking Polish couple, the husband a former Talmudic prodigy turned intellectual and his wife Shoshanah, as they struggle to recreate and conserve their Jewish culture in a strange land. He travelled to the Soviet Union several times, once with Manning Clark and James Devaney.[4] He was involved in the Realist Writers Group, International PEN, the Fellowship of Australian Writers and served on the Literature Board of the Australia Council. In 1967, he became a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party. However, he left the party in 1972 to join the pro-Soviet Socialist Party of Australia.[3] In 1985 he died on his birthday in Heidelberg, and was survived by his wife, who was of Scottish descent,[5] and their daughter.[3] Honours and awardsIn 1979 he was awarded membership of the Order of Australia.[6] In 1985 he was posthumously awarded the Patrick White Award. BibliographyNovels
Non-fiction
Memoir
References
Further reading
External links
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