The Road from Coorain

Jill Ker Conway

Mar 2009 · Recorded Books · Narrated by Barbara Caruso

About this audiobook

In the 1930s, Jill Ker's parents bought a sheep farm on the western plains of New South Wales. In 1944, they lost nearly everything when a drought hit. Forced to leave Coorain, 11-year-old Jill and her mother settled in Sydney where Jill struggled to find a place for herself among Sydney's elite. Her story, both a chronicle of life in the Australian outback and the odyssey of a brilliant woman fighting the constraints of her time, offers a loving view of Australia. Includes a taped afterword by the author.

Ratings and reviews

lovely 😍

About the author

Jill Ker Conway was born Jill Kathryn Ker in Hillston, New South Wales, Australia on October 9, 1934. She received a history degree from the University of Sydney in 1958 and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1969. She took a teaching post at the University of Toronto. She became a dean in 1971 and a vice president in 1973. In 1975, she became the first woman to be named president of Smith College. She left Smith in 1985 to become a writer. She wrote three memoirs entitled The Road from Coorain, True North, and A Woman's Education. In 2002, the PBS program Masterpiece Theater used The Road from Coorain as the basis for a film. She also wrote When Memory Speaks: Reflections on Autobiography. She edited several books including Written by Herself: Autobiographies of American Women and In Her Own Words: Women's Memoirs from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. In 2013, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She died on June 1, 2018 at the age of 83.