John Birmingham is an
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n author. Birmingham was born in
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and migrated to Australia with his parents in 1970.
Early life and career
John Birmingham grew up in
IpswichIpswich is a city in South-East Queensland, Australia. Situated along the Bremer River Valley approximately 40 kilometres away from the state's capital Brisbane. The suburb by the same name forms the city's Central Business District and administrative centre...
,
QueenslandQueensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
and was educated at St Edmund's College in Ipswich and the
University of QueenslandThe University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
in
BrisbaneBrisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
. His only stint of full time employment was as a researcher at the Defence Department. After this he returned to Queensland to study law but he did not complete his legal studies, choosing instead to pursue a career as a writer. He currently lives in Brisbane.
While a law student he was one of the last people arrested under the state's Anti Street March legislation. Birmingham was convicted of displaying a sheet of paper with the words 'Free Speech' written on it in very small type. The local newspaper carried a photograph of him being frogmarched off to a waiting police paddy wagon.
Birmingham has a degree in international relations.
Published works
Birmingham was first published in
Semper FloreatSemper Floreat is the student newspaper of the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia. It has been published continuously by the University of Queensland Union since 1932, when it began as a fortnightly newsletter of only a few pages, produced by one editor...
, the student newspaper at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, writing a series of stories featuring a fictional character named Commander Harrison Biscuit. He won a young writers award for the Independent, which was edited by Brian Toohey and wrote a number of articles for
Rolling StoneRolling Stone Australia is an Australian-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published monthly, it is the Australian edition of the United States' Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone was initially released in Melbourne in May 1970 as a supplement in Revolution, an...
and Australian Penthouse magazines.
Birmingham is most notable for the memoir
He Died With A Felafel In His HandHe Died with a Felafel in His Hand is a novel by John Birmingham, first published in 1994 by The Yellow Press . The story consists of a collection of colourful anecdotes about living in share houses in Brisbane and other cities in Australia with variously dubious housemates. The title refers to a...
(1994), which has since been turned into a play, film and a graphic novel. The sequel is
The Tasmanian Babes FiascoThe Tasmanian Babes Fiasco is a 1997 novel by John Birmingham. It is a sequel to He Died With A Felafel In His Hand and involves several prominent characters from the first novel, namely Taylor the Cabbie, Jabba the Hutt, Thunderbird Ron, Brainthrust Leonard, Missy, Elroy and Stacy.The major...
(Duffy and Snellgrove, 1997). The play was written and produced by thirty-six unemployed actors. It went on to become the longest running stage play in Australian history.
Other works by him include
The Search for Savage Henry, a crime novel featuring the character Harrison Biscuit,
How To Be A Man, a semi-humorous guide to contemporary Australian masculinity and
Off One's Tits, a collection of essays and articles previously published elsewhere. He also spent four years researching the
history of SydneyThe History of Sydney begins in prehistoric times with the occupation of the district by Australian Aborigines, whose ancestors came to Australia between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago...
for
Leviathan: the unauthorised biography of Sydney (Random House, 1999, ISBN 0-09-184203-4). It won Australia's National Prize For Non-Fiction in 2002.
He has also written two small pocket books
The Felafel Guide to Getting Wasted (2002) and
The Felafel Guide to Sex (2002) which feature advice Birmingham has received over the years regarding those two subjects. He also wrote the non-fictional book "Dopeland" which examined Australia's cannabis culture.
Birmingham has written two
Quarterly EssayQuarterly Essay is an Australian periodical that straddles the border between magazines and non-fiction books. Printed in a book-like page size and using a single-column format, each issue features a single extended essay of at least 20,000 words, with an introduction by the editor, and...
s (Black Inc. an imprint of Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd)
Appeasing Jakarta: Australia's Complicity in the East Timor Tragedy and
A Time for War: Australia as a Military Power. He is also a regular
contributor to
The MonthlyThe Monthly is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz...
, an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts.
In September 2006, Birmingham wrote a piece in
The Australian lambasting
Germaine GreerGermaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
for
an allegedly tactless article she'd written in
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
about
Steve IrwinStephen Robert "Steve" Irwin , nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian television personality, wildlife expert, and conservationist. Irwin achieved worldwide fame from the television series The Crocodile Hunter, an internationally broadcast wildlife documentary series which he co-hosted...
shortly after his death.
In Birmingham's response he attacked her as "
childlessChildlessness describes a person who does not have any children. The causes of childlessness are many and it has great personal, social and political significance...
", a "poorly sketched
caricatureA caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
of a
harridan", a "
feralA feral organism is one that has changed from being domesticated to being wild or untamed. In the case of plants it is a movement from cultivated to uncultivated or controlled to volunteer. The introduction of feral animals or plants to their non-native regions, like any introduced species, may...
hagA hag is a wizened old woman, or a kind of fairy or goddess having the appearance of such a woman, often found in folklore and children's tales such as Hansel and Gretel. Hags are often seen as malevolent, but may also be one of the chosen forms of shapeshifting deities, such as the Morrígan or...
", a "wretched bag lady" with a "redundant fright-mask" and a "creepy sexual consideration" for "hairless boys". It was subsequently criticised in a number of blogs and
national newspapers for its alleged
misogynyMisogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
. Birmingham agreed the attack was personal, but denied that it was misogynist.
Axis of Time Trilogy
In 2004 he published the alternate history
Weapons of Choice, the first in the
Axis of TimeThe Axis of Time trilogy is an alternate history series of novels written by Australian journalist and author John Birmingham, from Macmillan Publishing.-Plot:...
trilogy, a series of
Tom ClancyThomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...
-like techno-thrillers. Many writers from those genres appear as minor characters. It was published by
Del Rey BooksDel Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...
in the US and by Pan Macmillan in Australia.
The series tells of a
multinationalA Multinational force is a multinational operation which may be defensive, aggressive, or peacekeeping.Multinational forces include:* Multinational Force and Observers * Multinational Force in LebanonNATO:* IFOR* SFOR...
peacekeeping force from the early 21st century being taken back in time to 1942, where its presence completely changes the course of the Second World War. In August 2005, the second book,
Designated TargetsDesignated Targets is the second volume of John Birmingham's Axis of Time trilogy.-Plot summary:It is September 1942, four months after the Transition. A cease-fire has been signed between Hitler and Stalin, and the dictators have re-established their June 1941 borders...
was published in Australia. US publication followed in October.
The third and final book in the trilogy,
Final Impact-Plot summary:Picking up two years onwards from the end of Designated Targets, Final Impact is the last novel in the Axis of Time trilogy. The supercarrier USS Hillary Clinton has been refurbished with more conventional steam catapults which replaced her less reliable fuel air explosive catapults...
, was released in Australia in early August 2006, and was released in the US in January 2007. The ABC reported in 2006 that there were two new
BirmoverseThe Axis of Time trilogy is an alternate history series of novels written by Australian journalist and author John Birmingham, from Macmillan Publishing.-Plot:...
books in the works, one set shortly after the end of the war, and another in the alternate 1980s, said to feature a dashing young
RAFThe Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
pilot:
Richard BransonSir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....
. One of these books was originally set to be released in Australia in 2008, but Birmingham instead wrote
Without WarningWithout Warning, is an alternate history novel written by Australian author John Birmingham and released in Australia in September 2008 and in the United States and the United Kingdom in February 2009. It is the first book in a new stand-alone universe...
.
Without Warning
Without WarningWithout Warning, is an alternate history novel written by Australian author John Birmingham and released in Australia in September 2008 and in the United States and the United Kingdom in February 2009. It is the first book in a new stand-alone universe...
, the first book in a new stand alone universe, was released in Australia in September 2008. The novel, separate from the
Axis of TimeThe Axis of Time trilogy is an alternate history series of novels written by Australian journalist and author John Birmingham, from Macmillan Publishing.-Plot:...
Trilogy, is a thought experiment which is set on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003. It deals with the disappearance of the bulk of the US population as the result of a large energy field that becomes known as "The Wave."
Without Warning deals with the international consequences of the disappearance of the world's only super power on the eve of war. It was released in the US on 3 February 2009. A second novel, titled
After AmericaAfter America is an alternate history novel written by Australian author John Birmingham and released in Australia in July 2010. It was released in the United States on 17 August 2010.-Synopsis:...
, was released on 1 July 2010 in Australia and 17 August 2010 in the USA.
According to the author's blog he is working on a 3rd in the series called Angels of Vengeance, which is to be released on 1 November 2011 in Australia and April 2012 in the US. Additional books in the series will be released in ebook format as part of Pan Macmillan's digital only publishing venture Momentum.
External links