John Birmingham
John Birmingham (born 7th of August
1964) is an
Australian author. Birmingham was born in
Liverpool UK and migrated to Australia with his parents in
1970. He grew up in
Ipswich, Queensland. He attended the St Edmunds Christian Brother's College, Ipswich, Queensland and the University of Queensland. 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. During this period he was one of the last people arrested under the state's Anti Street March legislation. Birmingham was convicted of the heinous misdemeanor of displaying a sheet of paper with the words 'Free Speech' written on it in very small type. The local newpaper carried a photograph of him being frogmarched off to a waiting police paddy wagon.
Birmingham is most notable for the novel
He Died With A Felafel In His Hand (
1994), which has since been turned into a play, film and a graphic novel. The sequel is
The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco (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.
Birmingham is also a foreign affairs expert, and has written an essay about
Australia's relations with
Indonesia, "Appeasing Jakarta," which was published in the
Quarterly Essay. Other works by him include the
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 Sydney for
Leviathan: the unauthorised biography of Sydney (Random House,
1999, ISBN 0091842034). It won Australia's National Prize For Non-Fiction in
2002.
In
2004 he published
Weapons of Choice, the first in the
Axis of Time trilogy, a series of
Tom Clancy-like techno-thrillers; simultaneously a satire of the technothriller and alternate history genres. Many writers from those genres appear as minor characters. It was published by
Del Rey Books in the US and by
Pan Macmillan in Australia.
In August
2005, the second book,
Designated Targets was published in Australia. US publication followed in October.
The third and final book in the trilogy,
Final Impact, was released in Australia in early August 2006, and will be released on January 30, 2007 in the US.
He maintains a blog at http://birmo.journalspace.com
*
ABC Queensland story on Birmingham*
ABC Radio National story on Leviathan
