Show Notes
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Anna Thomasson chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about A Vast Horizon: Artists and Lovers, Freedom and War. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
Why Anna Thomasson chose a collective biography to reveal the chemistry and interconnected lives of nine surrealists. How a 1937 summer at the Hôtel Vaste Horizon became the book’s narrative and symbolic starting point. What photographs reveal about historical lives and why their apparent intimacy can never yield the whole truth. How letters, diaries, poems and artworks became ‘wormholes’ into her subjects’ experiences. Why Anna Thomasson preserves archival silences and honours Ady Fidelin’s right to opacity rather than speculating. How short chapters, juxtaposition and a collage of fragments sustain momentum across nine intersecting lives. Why contradictions, omissions and self-mythologising belong inside biography instead of being smoothed into certainty. Thomasson’s advice to biographers: set research boundaries, trust your instincts and accept that every life remains provisional.
More from Biographers in Conversation
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Tim Dobbyn chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Black, White + Colour: A Biography of Mervyn Bishop Australia's First Indigenous Professional Photographer Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Joshua Kendall chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Trudeau & Doonesbury: The Cartoonist Who Turned the News into Art Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr James Bailey chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Nigel Cameron chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Dr Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Kathryn Heyman chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Circle of Wonders. Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: