STOW, RANDOLPH

born Nov. 28, 1935, Geraldton, W.Aus., Australia in full Julian Randolph Stow Australian novelist and poet noted for his economical style and great powers of description. Stow's first novel, A Haunted Land (1956), a wild, almost Gothic tale, appeared in the same year he graduated from the University of Western Australia. In 1957 he began to teach English at the University of Adelaide and brought out his second novel, The Bystander, a further treatment of the themes of A Haunted Land. He later worked in an Anglican mission for Aborigines in northwest Australia, assisted an anthropologist in New Guinea, and traveled to England, Scotland, and Malta. In 1962 and again in 1968 he taught at the University of Leeds, Eng., and in 1963 at the University of Western Australia. In 1963 appeared Tourmaline, another strange, powerful, and terrifying novel, and in 1965 The Merry-Go-round in the Sea was published. In the latter novel the heritage of a land built on its contrasting traditions of convict settlement and South Pacific paradise clashes with the values of a new Australia emerging from the impact of World War II. Other novels include To the Islands (1958; rev. ed. 1981); Visitants (1979), a study of the impact of tribal life on Australians; and The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980). Among Stow's books of poetry are Act One (1957), Outrider (1962), and A Counterfeit Silence (1969). He also published Poetry from Australia (1969) with Judith Wright and William Hart-Smith. Stow also wrote a book for children entitled Midnite (1967) and two libretti for operas scored by Peter Maxwell Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King (publ. 1969) and Miss Donnithorne's Maggot (prod. 1974, publ. 1977).