Erik Jensen

An unflinching portrait of talent and addiction. In 2008 the artist Adam Cullen invited journalist Erik Jensen to stay in his spare room and write his biography. What followed were four years of intense honesty and a relationship that became increasingly claustrophobic. At one point Cullen shot Jensen, in part to see how committed he was to the book. At another, he threw Jensen from a speeding motorbike. The book contract Cullen used to convince Jensen to stay with him never existed. Acute Misfortune is a riveting account of the life and death of one of Australia's most celebrated artists, the man behind the Archibald Prize-winning portrait of David Wenham. Jensen follows Cullen through drug deals and periods of deep self-reflection, onwards into his court appearance for weapons possession and finally his death in 2012 at the age of forty-six. The story is by turns tender and horrifying: a spare tale of art, sex, drugs and childhood, told at close quarters and without judgement. 'A teasing and complex ode to a man who defied attempts to categorise him or to understand him. Jensen's portrait dares to be both beautiful and ugly - that is, he is both tender and forensic. This is a marvellous, propulsive, intelligent read.' Christos Tsiolkas 'Fierce and spellbinding' David Marr 'A marvellous, propulsive, intelligent read.' Christos Tsiolkas 'The terrible force of the painter's rush to self-destruction is matched all the way by the writer's calm mastery of his story.' Helen Garner

The Life and Death of Adam Cullen

Acute Misfortune

"A fragmentary account of life and its complexities, I said the sea was folded charts the first three years of Erik Jensen's relationship with his partner, Evelyn Ida Morris. These are love poems, written against the difficulty of understanding another person" -- back cover.

I Said the Sea Was Folded; Poems

Some of Australia's best political writing: a dazzling chronicle from the editor of The Saturday Paper Drawn from the first ten years of The Saturday Paper, these editorials tell the story of a country in trouble. They are a penetrating account of the people who have led Australia, fusing character studies with political insights and unvarnished rage. Taken together, they form a sparkling portrait of a lost decade. This is writing that is witty, curious and sharp-eyed. 'These editorials are my guiding light in these terrible times.' —Marcia Langton AO

Ten Years of Editorials from The Saturday Paper

Angry at Breakfast

Jessica Blank

THE STORY: March 20, 2003. A date that the ordinary people of Iraq will never forget. A day that changed their lives forever: the day the Americans arrived in their country. Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen travelled to Jordan in June 2008 to find out

Aftermath

Kate says she doesn’t know what to say about writing. When people ask, she tells them to prepare for a life of failure. Award-winning writer Erik Jensen plunges the reader into the world of acclaimed novelist, poet and pioneering feminist Kate Jennings. Weaving in his interviews with Jennings in New York, he shows how poetry, politics and family were transmuted into her first novel, Snake – a work of art that depicts rural Australia in a funny, cutting and unforgettable way. This is a biography of a book and the life that made it. In the Writers on Writers series, leading writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative, crisp and written from a practitioner’s perspective, the series starts a fresh conversation between past and present, and writer and reader. It sheds light on the craft of writing, and introduces some intriguing and talented authors and their work. Published by Black Inc. in association with the University of Melbourne and State Library Victoria.

Writers on Writers

On Kate Jennings

What did the ancient Greeks and Romans think of the peoples they referred to as barbari? Did they share the modern Western conception--popularized in modern fantasy literature and role-playing games--of "barbarians" as brutish, unwashed enemies of civilization? Or our related notion of "the noble savage?" Was the category fixed or fluid? How did it contrast with the Greeks and Romans' conception of their own cultural identity? Was it based on race? In accessible, jargon-free prose, Erik Jensen addresses these and other questions through a copiously illustrated introduction to the varied and evolving ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged with, and thought about, foreign peoples--and to the recent historical and archaeological scholarship that has overturned received understandings of the relationship of Classical civilization to its "others."

Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World

I Kim Larsen – et livs sange dykker Erik Jensen, Politikens mangeårige musikskribent, ned i de Kim Larsen-sange, der har været danskernes lydtapet igennem fem årtier. Fra dengang tressernes drømmeflip blev afløst af 1970’ernes benhårde socialrealisme og frem til 2010’erne, hvor spillemanden Larsen til det sidste rejste landet tyndt på en nærmest kronisk koncertturne. Det er en bog om det univers, de personligheder og det Danmark, der er vokset ud af de omkring 500 sange, som Kim Larsen nåede at indspille.

Et livs sange

Kim Larsen

Hackett's Passages: Key Moments in History series titles include original-source documents in accessible editions, indented for the student-user or general audience. This edition, The Greco-Persian Wars, taps our knowledge of the Persian Empire and its interactions with the Greek world. The sources examined were created in different times and places, for different purposes, and with different intended audiences. Using these sources effectively requires recognizing their distinct characteristics. A general introduction about the Greco-Persian wars is included to provide historical background and an overview of the information contained in the original-source documents. Also included are a glossary of terms, a chronology, insightful headnotes to each document, and an index.

A Short History with Documents

The Greco-Persian Wars

Renate Welsh

Johanna

THE STORY: Culled from interviews, letters, transcripts, case files and the public record, THE EXONERATED tells the true stories of six wrongfully convicted survivors of death row in their own words. In this ninety-minute intermissionless play, we

A Play

The Exonerated

Sigurd Wandel

An Introduction

Formation & Growth of Unplanned Urban Settlements in Developing Countries

Jensen explores the long-standing conflict over the sovereignty of Western Sahara-from its colonial roots to its present manifestation as a political stalemate.

Anatomy of a Stalemate

Western Sahara

The Iban and Their Religion

Erik Jensen tog til Den Iberiske Halvø for som kulturkorrespondent at skildre kulturen i Spanien. Gennem utallige rejser i landet skildres de store byer, maden, vinen, kulturen, fodbolden og tyrefægtningen med forfatterens fascination af og kærlighed til det spanske som brændstof for reportager, fortællinger, portrætter og interview. Kom med på besøg hos den kendte tyrefægter, mød nogle af landets mest anerkendte forfattere og musikere, drag tilbage til borgerkrigens slagmarker, tag med dybt ind i den ulmende selvstændighed i Baskerlandet og Catalonien og til det andalusiske hjerteland. Spanien Mañana er et forsøg på ud fra evig undren over og en lige så vedholdende kærlighed til Spanien at skildre landets udvikling og baggrunden for den. Bogen er bygget op som en vekslen mellem længere kapitler og korte skildringer af 12 spanske fænomener. Selv om der er masser af personlige anbefalinger, er det hverken en traditionel guidebog eller en politisk frontberetning. Det er fortællinger fra og en hyldest til et både traditionsrigt og moderne Spanien, der fortsat står over for enorme udfordringer.

- håber vi får i morgen med

Spanien Mañana

What did the ancient Greeks and Romans think of the peoples they referred to as barbari? Did they share the modern Western conception—popularized in modern fantasy literature and role-playing games—of "barbarians" as brutish, unwashed enemies of civilization? Or our related notion of "the noble savage?" Was the category fixed or fluid? How did it contrast with the Greeks and Romans' conception of their own cultural identity? Was it based on race? In accessible, jargon-free prose, Erik Jensen addresses these and other questions through a copiously illustrated introduction to the varied and evolving ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged with, and thought about, foreign peoples—and to the recent historical and archaeological scholarship that has overturned received understandings of the relationship of Classical civilization to its "others."

In 2008, the artist Adam Cullen invited journalist Erik Jensen to stay in his spare room and write his biography. What followed were four years of intense honesty and a relationship that became increasingly claustrophobic. At one point Cullen shot Jensen, in part to see how committed he was to the book. At another, he threw Jensen from a speeding motorbike. The book contract Cullen used to convince Jensen to stay with him never existed. Acute Misfortune is a riveting account of the life and death of one of Australia’s most celebrated artists, the man behind the Archibald Prize–winning portrait of David Wenham. Jensen follows Cullen through drug deals and periods of deep self-reflection, onwards into his court appearance for weapons possession and finally his death in 2012 at the age of forty-six. After much critical acclaim, Acute Misfortune was developed into a feature film, winning The Age Critics Award at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2018. The story is by turns tender and horrifying: a spare tale of art, sex, drugs and childhood, told at close quarters and without judgement. Winner of the 2015 Nib Waverley Library Award for Literature Shortlisted in the 2015 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and for the 2015 Walkley Book Award ‘Erik Jensen is a Boswell or Vasari for our baffled, fractured, fucked-up times. Acute Misfortune is the most intimate, revealing, and original take on an artist’s life I know of.’ —Sebastian Smee ‘Erik Jensen gives us that ingenious place where biography is also art.’ —Jennifer Clement ‘This is supposed to be about an artist, a wild man, his lifetime, and it is; but Jensen has written such a beautiful window that all art and life is shining through. I'm supposed to be an artist but I cannot put this down.’ —DBC Pierre

Erik Jensen

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