Ink in Her Veins: The Troubled Life of Aileen Palmer by Sylvia Martin

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with no external stickers. Marks on right tail foredge. Piece of sticky tape on inside page, otherwise interior is still very good.

Aileen Palmer - poet, translator, political activist, and adventurer - was the daughter of two writers prominent in Australian literature in the first half of the twentieth century. Vance and Nettie Palmer were well known as critics, journalists and novelists, and Nettie suspected that their eldest would grow up with 'ink in her veins'.

Aileen certainly inherited her parents' talents, publishing poetry, translating the work of Ho Chi Minh, and recording what she referred to as 'semi-fictional bits of egocentric writing'. She also absorbed their interest in leftist politics, joining the Communist Party at university.

This, combined with her bravery, led to her participation in the Spanish Civil War and the ambulance service in London during World War II. The return to Australia was not easy, and Aileen never successfully reintegrated into civilian life.

In Ink in Her Veins, Sylvia Martin paints an honest and moving portrait in which we see a talented woman slowly brought down by war, family expectations, psychiatric illness and the sometimes cruel treatments common in the 20th century. (back cover)