Introduced by Favel Parrett
'Mother's stomach bellied out like a sail. Young, she was unable to say no to anyone who asked her to make love. Her reasons for her behaviour were all her own; never, after she'd had me did she allow another man to enter her; my birth was her real marriage. And when I was six, she shut herself away entirely.'
A Woman of the Future, first published in 1979, was David Ireland's best-selling sixth novel and his third to win the Miles Franklin Award.
An imaginative tour de force, it is the story of the young life of Anthea Hunt—from conception to sexual awakening. It is controversial and brilliant, and unlike anything else in Australian literature.
Now published as a Text Classic, it features a new introduction from Kate Jennings