AWW22 The Education of Young Donald - Kerryn Goldsworthy, Julia Horne and Nick Horne

Chaired by Peter Rose


The Education of Young Donald trilogy is Donald Horne’s
autobiographies — The Education of Young Donald (1967),
Confessions of a New Boy (1985) and Portrait of an Optimist
(1988). They’re the story of an Australian prophet; his years
away from home, the gallery of characters he meets on the
journey, the “successes that were failures and failures that were
successes”, and his unexpected emergence as a voice of the
nation. Seventeen years after his passing, analysis of his legacy
feels timely in a country still dumbly surfing on its luck.