Grace to be born and live as variously as possible, Dorothy Coade Hewett AM (May 21, 1923 - August 25, 2002)
This August marks the 20th anniversary of the death of national literary icon, Dorothy Hewett, Australia's best-known female playwright and much-loved local doyenne of poetry readings and book launches at Varuna, the Writers' House in Katoomba.
Hewett died in Springwood Hospital on August 25, 2002. She had chosen to spend the last decade of her life in Faulconbridge, living simply in the colonial-era Cobb and Co staging post on the Great Western Highway. She called her home "None-Go-By", and there she spent one of the most prolific decades of her writing life.
The writer now rests in Springwood cemetery not far from the grave of her simpatico, artist Norman Lindsay. Her last book of poetry, "Halfway up the Mountain", lyrically expresses the poet's love of Country, and especially of mountain landscape, within the wistful contemplation of her own life's journey.
The international Feminist Companion to Literature in English (Yale University) states: "Dorothy Hewett is the first Australian woman playwright to have won widespread recognition and production of her plays. ... Her early plays are often strongly feminist ... showing woman questing for self-fulfillment. She was a trail-blazer in gender politics, defiant of the local patriarchy".
Dorothy Hewett created a world within her Self, a private mythological universe which she shared with her audiences. Her work and life were not without controversy, yet her literary integrity and compassionate humanity would always see her through.
In Dorothy Hewett's ten years at Faulconbridge, although suffering from breast cancer and crippled by osteoarthritis, she produced two new prize-winning books of verse and saw two further poetry manuscripts (begun in Sydney) into print.
At None-Go-By she also completed and edited a collection of short stories, wrote and published two new novels, conceived, wrote and published two new plays and, despite her lack of mobility, became a cherished and active mentor for local and visiting writers (published and aspiring) in the back room at None-Go-By and also at Varuna, where she conducted a local literary salon for some years along with the inaugural director, Peter Bishop.
Dorothy Hewett asked of herself one most poignant, final question:
How did I, who never thought I'd live past thirty-five,
become so old and so prolific?
