Stow, Randolph (1935-2010), was an Australian novelist and poet. His fiction won praise for its lyrical descriptions of the landscape of Western Australia. Stow’s works evoke the landscapes in an intimate, poetic way that links them closely with the characters.
Stow established his reputation with his third novel, To the Islands (1958), a powerful tale of an old missionary and an Aboriginal man. The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea (1965), written in New Mexico, is an evocative portrait of a boy growing up during the war and postwar years of the 1940’s. Presumably largely autobiographical, it is a delicate picture of a boy, friends, and family that is probably one of the best portrayals of youth in Australian fiction. Through the lives of two cousins, the novel also portrays the clash of values between the older Australia and the new Australia emerging after the end of World War II in 1945.
Julian Randolph Stow was born on Nov. 28, 1935, in Geraldton, Western Australia. He graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1956. Stow’s early novels have a wild, Gothic quality. They include his first novel, The Wild Land (1956); The Bystander (1957); and Tourmaline (1963). His other novels include Visitants (1979), The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980), and The Suburbs of Hell (1984). Stow’s poetry was published in such collections as Act One (1957), Outrider (1962), and A Counterfeit Silence (1969). Stow died on May 29, 2010.
