John Mewton Harcourt was born on 2 March 1902 in
Melbourne, Victoria, and grew up in
Western Australia. eventually becoming captain of a
pearling lugger. Leaving Perth in 1934 to move to Melbourne after being offered a at
Truth, he joined the
Communist Party of Australia. which had been established in 1933 by Prime Minister
Joseph Lyon's United Australia Party (later renamed the Literature Censorship Board). It was initially banned as
seditious, later reviewed and the ban confirmed, ostensibly on grounds of
indecency and explicit depictions of sex under the
Indecent Publications Act, after the recently established Book Censorship Board had suggested the ban. It was the first Australian novel to employ the
socialist realist style, the manner promoted by the
Soviet Union at that time. However the main cause of its ban was its
socialist tone and subversive agenda which criticised
capitalism, featuring
Communist characters in its portrayal of life in the relief camps of the Depression. ==Selected works==