PRICHARD, KATHERINE SUSANNAH

born Dec. 4, 1883, Levuka, Fiji died Oct. 2, 1969, Greenmount, near Perth, W.Aus., Australia Australian novelist and writer of short stories, plays, and verse, best known for The Pioneers (1915; filmed 1926). Prichard's father was editor of the Fiji Times, and she grew up mostly in Australia. She first worked as a newspaper journalist in Melbourne and Sydney and then as a free-lance journalist in London before concentrating on her plays and fiction. She returned to Australia in 1916. While visiting London in 1909, Prichard was deeply affected by the plight of the workers. The suffering she witnessed on her second visit caused her to join the Communist Party of Australia in 1920. The Marxist influence and her social consciousness was particularly evident in her early plays but remained constant throughout her career. Her skillful use of natural imagery and colloquial language are credited with altering prevailing attitudes toward the Aborigines. Prichard's other novels include Black Opal (1921), Working Bullocks (1926), Coonardoo (1929), and a trilogy set in the Western Australian goldfields: The Roaring Nineties (1946), Golden Miles (1948), and Winged Seeds (1950).