19 May Vale Professor Emeritus Gerald A. Wilkes
It is with sadness that ASAL acknowledges the passing of Emeritus Professor Gerry Wilkes.
G. A. Wilkes (1927-2020) took his BA and MA degrees at the University of Sydney before completing his doctoral work at Oxford. His MA thesis was published as a monograph, Brennan’s Poems (1913), in 1953 and led to a number of articles on Christopher Brennan. Wilkes also engaged with the work of other Australian writers throughout his career, including Henry Handel Richardson, A. D. Hope, Patrick White, R. D. Fitzgerald and Judith Wright. G.A Wilkes was appointed as the inaugural Chair of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney in 1962 and continued to teach and publish with distinction in the field. As part of this significant contribution, Wilkes held the editorship of Southerly for a remarkable thirty-four years.
Fiona Morrison (on behalf of the Association)