About Eden

Dr Eden Liddelow worked in language teaching and research at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London before lecturing in English and Applied Linguistics at RMIT in the Diploma course for interpreters and translators. After completing her PhD in literature and linguistics she taught literature and creative writing at Melbourne and Deakin Universities, before leaving academic life to write full-time. She is now a novelist, critic, poet and translator with a particular interest in French affairs: while the program existed she was an assessor of applications for translation grants with the Australia Council for the Arts.

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Her publications number around seventy. Critical books: From Big Brother to Big Brother (Palo Alto: Academica, 2013 (awarded a $25,000 grant and a 2006 residency at the Keesing Studio in Paris by the Australia Council)) was preceded by After Electra: rage, grief and hope in twentieth-century fiction, a study of notable international women novelists (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2002, also supported by the Australia Council). Her novel The Quarantine Station (Acland) was short-listed for the Angus and Robertson Bookworld Award 1998. A poetry collection, and trees are trees (Paradox Publishing), appeared in 2008. Her translation of Philippe Delerm’s You Have No New Messages (Melbourne, Acland) was released in 2015. An earlier translation from the French of Charles Rojzman’s How To Live Together: a new way of dealing with racism and violence (Acland, originally Éditions Syros, Paris) appeared in 1999 (and was taken up by NSW Police).

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Shorter works: Essays on fiction and poetry, language, psychoanalysis, politics, cultural studies and current affairs generally have appeared in Best Australian Essays, Meanjin, Southerly, Fine Line, Age Monthly Review, Arena, Editions, Modern Times, Australian Women’s Book Review, Tirra Lirra, Heat and Scripsi. Her stories have been published by Southerly, Meanjin and Fine Line. Her poetry is published by Cadenza (UK), Meanjin, The Australian, The Age, Tirra Lirra, Blue Dog, the ACU Prize Anthology and the Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology. Her journalism has appeared in The Age, The Australian and the Sunday Herald.

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She was shortlisted for the ACU Poetry Prize in 2023 and 2014, the FAW Poetry Award in 2003, the Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology for 2002, the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize in 2001, and both the Radio National Poetry Prize and FAW prize in 1994, before a commendation in 1995 and a shortlisting again in 1996. She has given poetry readings at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, and at King’s College, London.

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Former chair of the Victorian Advisory Council of the ABC, she was founding secretary of the Victorian branch of Friends of the ABC. She has been active in ethnic affairs, politics and St Kilda community life, and enjoys choral singing and watching birds. She divides her time between Australia, the UK and France.  She was significantly incapacitated over the last decade by Whipple’s Disease, a systemic condition, but has now recovered.