Donald Stuart (novelist)

Donald Stuart (13 September 1913 – 25 August 1983) was an Australian novelist whose works include stories with Aboriginal backgrounds, and a series recounting his experience as a prisoner of war in Burma in World War II.

Donald Robert Stuart was born in Cottesloe, Western Australia and apart from his time spent overseas during World War II, he lived all his life in that state. His father was Julian Stuart, a poet and activist, and he was the brother of Lyndall Hadow, also a writer. Stuart left home at age 14 and began a career as a swagman (an itinerant who wandered the roads seeking casual work). He travelled through much of northern Western Australia finding work on cattle stations and it was during these years that he came into close contact with Aborigines.

Stuart volunteered at the start of World War II for the 2nd Australian Imperial Force. He saw service in the Middle East as a 2/3rd Machine Gunner and then in Java, Indonesia, where he was captured by the Japanese. He then spent three and a half years as a POW. Along with Weary Dunlop, he was sent to work on the Burma Railway, a purgatory from which many did not return. In Stuart’s own words:

"We built a railway from near Bangkok to near Rangoon—thousands of us POWs starved, scourged, racked with malaria, dysentery, beri-beri, pellagra and stinking tropical ulcers that ate a leg to the bone."

Stuart’s first novel, Yandy, was published to critical acclaim in 1959. It became a modest best seller and was studied at the high school level in some Australian school systems. The events take place against the background of the 1946 Pilbara strike. The book was to set the tone for others that followed, causing literary critic Professor Adam Shoemaker to write:

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