Literary 'living treasure' talks up Geraldton's treasures

Living treasure Robert Drewe was in Geraldton on the weekend ahead of the launch of his new book for the Australian National Library.

The Beach: An Australian Passion is a written illustration of the Australian National Library’s coastal and beach photography archives, and is due to be launched in a few weeks.

Friends of the Geraldton Library hosted an afternoon with the award-winning novelist and two-time Walkley award-winning journalist last Sunday.

Earlier this month, he was named a 2015 State Living Treasures recipient.

The State Living Treasures Awards honour artists whose lifetime work has enhanced the artistic and cultural life of Western Australia, providing inspiration for other artists and enriching the community.

Drewe has written for almost every major newspaper in Australia and his books have won some of Australia’s top literary prizes including Book of the Year, the Adelaide Festival Prize, a National Book Council Award and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

He was born in Melbourne but moved to Perth at age six where he developed a love of the ocean, and his literary work is largely influenced by the Swan River and the Indian Ocean coastline, where he learned to swim and surf.

As a child he pored over novels such as Robinson Crusoe and the Famous Five series, read encyclopaedias and spent hours at the library.

His talent for writing was clear at any early age, and upon leaving school he embarked on a cadetship with The West Australian.

After 10 years as a journalist he turned his mind to fiction writing, and his first novel The Savage Crows was followed by other widely acclaimed novels, non-fiction and memoirs including The Body Surfers, The Drowner, The Bay of Contented Men, The Rip and The Shark Net.

Drewe spoke with the Friends of the Library about his two memoirs The Shark Net and Montebello, because these books are the two that most pertain to WA.

He has visited Geraldton many times, both as a child and adult, and believes the city’s greatest attributes are its position as the gateway to the Abrolhos Islands and its history, the museum and library.

“I always get a distinct sense of being on the edge of Australia and open to old East Indies trading routes and shipwrecks and explorations and dangers,” he said.