Ian Mudie



Ian Mayelstone Mudie (1 March 1911 – 23 October 1976) was an Australian poet and author from Adelaide closely connected with the Jindyworobak Movement, which he was associated with from 1939 onwards. In 1941 he moved to Sydney and became involved in Australia First. He was a friend of Miles Franklin, and attracted positive criticism from Xavier Herbert.

Life
He took an active part in various national writers' bodies in Australia.

He was a strong critic of white Australians' treatment of Indigenous people. The Australian literary historian, Brian Clunes Ross has written


 * "Ian Mudie in The Australian Dream (1943), revealed the delusory quality of the nationalist perception of Australia through its refusal to take into account the destruction of the natural environment and of Aboriginal culture… the Jindyworobaks… [were] often misrepresented by critics who claimed that the movement aimed to base Australian culture on Aboriginal culture. The Jindyworobaks were interested in Aborigines, and if white Australians are now able to recognise the grim impact of their civilisation on the Aboriginal inhabitants of the country, the Jindyworobaks are partly responsible…the Jindyworobaks… wanted to achieve a harmonious relationship between cuture and the environment, and realised that Aboriginal culture embodied it. This was an example from which they could learn, not by imitation, but by coming to understand and accept the conditions which the environment imposes on them." (Australian Literature and Australian Culture)

After the second World War Mudie conducted research into the paddlesteamers of the Murray-Darling river system and in 1961 published the book "Riverboats". He also wrote the story of "The Wreck of The Admella" off the south-east coast of South Australia and "The Heroic Journey of John McDouall Stuart".

He died in London and his ashes were scattered on the Murray River.