James Cowan

James Cowan is author of a number of internationally acclaimed books, including The Painted Shore, A Troubadour’s Testament and Letters from A Wild State. In 1998 he was awarded the prestigious Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal for his novel, A Mapmaker’s Dream. His work has been translated into seventeen languages. Born in Melbourne in 1942, Cowan completed his studies in Sydney. In the 1960’s he traveled and worked in Vancouver, New York, and London. For some years he lived in Marrakech and in Libya studying the Berber and Tuareg peoples. Returning to Australia in 1973, he decided to view his homeland as a foreign country. He made journeys throughout the continent, sometimes on horseback, exploring early European culture and its imprint on the land. This led to a succession of books, The Mountain Men, The River People, and Starlight’s Trail. James Cowan then began a ten-year study of the Aboriginal culture that led him to work, study, and finally live among Aborigines in the Center, the Far North and the Kimberly region. This resulted in a series of books that explored Aboriginal themes: Mysteries of the Dreaming, Myths of Dreaming, Sacred Places, The Aboriginal Tradition, Two Men Dreaming and finally Messengers of the Gods all found their inspiration in traditional cultural perspectives that the author encountered during his journeys. A part of his commitment to improving the lives of Aboriginal Australians entailed working in Balgo Hills, in the Tanami Desert, for two years as the art coordinator in the mid-1990s. He was able to revive a moribund art center, put in place efficient business systems, raise sufficient capital for an art and cultural center, and lift artists’ earnings to levels not seen in the industry before. As a result Warlayirti Artists Cooperative is now one of the most successful indigenous businesses in Australia. During this period he wrote two books on Aboriginal art, Wirrimanu: Art of the Balgo Hills, and Balgo, New Directions. In the 1990s Cowan turned to a more global perspective in literature. He became interested in fashioning a new prose - one that is spare, limpid, and devoid of all the old mechanisms of literary realism. This new prose is exploited in his novels A Mapmaker’s Dream, A Troubadour’s Testament, and more recently in his study, Rumi’s Divan of Shems of Tabriz. Each of these books is an attempt to re-affirm the greatness of the European and Near-Eastern traditions. Though steeped in history and imbued with a continuum between past and present, Cowan’s work is thoroughly directed toward the modern. James Cowan returned to Australia after spending three years in Italy where he researched and wrote Francis: A Saints Way. Another book, Journey to the Inner Mountain, a study of St Antony of Egypt in the 3rd century was researched during this period. In Montville, where he lived for four years, he oversaw the establishment of the Montville Cultural Precinct Corporation as a local government initiative, as well as the construction of an open-air theatre in the local park. The theatre precinct hosted music and theatrical events for the community. James Cowan is the recipient of an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Grand Valley State University in Michigan for his life’s work. He has lectured throughout the world on themes related to his deep knowledge of traditional peoples, Aboriginal art, metaphysics, and literature, and has served on the Brisbane Writers Festival Committee 2003-4. He is a member of the Temenos Academy in London, an organization founded by the British poet, Kathleen Raine. Some of the institutions that the author has lectured at are as follows: University of Bologna in Italy, University of Barcelona, Spain, Michigan State University MI, Grand Valley State University MI, Grand Rapids Museum MI, Temenos Academy in London, Schumacher College in Devon, Washburn University Topeka, KA, Earthwatch in Boston, Smith College MA, International Centre in New Delhi, Commonwealth Club of Rome, Australian Embassy in Madrid, as well as in many institutions in Australia. Most of these lectures, of course, have been on the subject of Aboriginal life, art and culture. He was appointed to the board of QAIMEA, a newly instituted government indigenous arts organization dedicated to raising the standards, and economic output, of Queensland Aboriginal art practitioners. QAIMEA helps to formulate state government policy under the aegis of the Premier. Recently, James Cowan has returned from a three-year stint in Argentina, where he researched and wrote a number of new books, including The Deposition and A Spanner in the Works. He has made film documentaries and collaborated with the Queensland Ballet in their production of Francis of Assisi. Cowan was offered a three month residency in September 2010 by the Dutch Literature Foundation to collaborate in the creation of a libretto with a major Dutch composer. Recently he has completed a PhD at the University of Queensland in Creative Writing, with a book on a Renaissance Prince, Vespasiano Gonzaga: Hamlet’s Ghost. He is the founder of Byron Philo Café in Byron Bay.