John Birmingham

John Birmingham (born 1964) is an Australian author. Birmingham was born in Liverpool in the UK and migrated to Australia with his parents in 1970. He grew up in Ipswich, Queensland.

Related Topics:
1964 - Australia - Liverpool - UK - 1970 - Ipswich, Queensland

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Birmingham is most notable for the novel He Died With A Felafel In His Hand (1994), which has since been turned into a play, film and a graphic novel. The sequel is The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco (Duffy and Snellgrove, 1997). The play was written and produced by thirty-six unemployed actors. It went on to become the longest running stage play in Australian history.

Related Topics:
He Died With A Felafel In His Hand - The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco

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John Birmingham is also a foreign affairs expert, and has written an essay about Australia's relations with Indonesia, Appeasing Jakarta, which was published in the Quarterly Essay. Other works by him include the How To Be A Man, a semi-humorous guide to contemporary Australian masculinity and Off One's Tits, a collection of essays and articles previously published elsewhere. He also spent four years researching the history of Sydney for Leviathan: the unauthorised biography of Sydney (Random House, 1999, ISBN 0091842034). It won Australia's National Prize For Non-Fiction in 2002.

Related Topics:
Australia - Indonesia - Quarterly Essay - History of Sydney

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In 2004 he published Weapons of Choice, the first in a trilogy of Tom Clancy-like techno-thrillers, which was simultaneously a satire of the technothriller and alternate history genres. Many writers from those genres appear as minor characters. It was published by Del Rey in the US and by Pan Macmillan in Australia.

Related Topics:
2004 - Weapons of Choice - Tom Clancy

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In August 2005, the second book, Designated Targets was published in Australia. He continued with using names of living people for minor characters - however this time it was mostly Australian journalists.

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He maintains a blog at http://birmo.journalspace.com

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