Eric Charles Rolls

Eric was born in Grenfell, New South Wales in 1923, and died in Camden Haven in 2007.[2] He attended the Sydney selective school of Fort Street High, before serving in the second world war in New Guinea,[1] as a signaller.[3] On his return from the war, he took up land in 1946 in the north-west of New South Wales (east of the Pilliga and later at "Cumberdeen", Baradine)[4] and farmed and wrote,[1] often spending long periods in Sydney, researching at the Mtichell Library.[4]

He had two happy marriages, the first with Joan Stephenson and after her death in 1985,[5] a second with Elaine van Kempen, whom he met when she came to work for him in 1985 as his research assistant,[6] and married in 1988.[3]

One of his most celebrated works is A Million Wild Acres of which Tom Griffiths (emeritus professor of history at the ANU) wrote:

"(Les) Murray considered A Million Wild Acres to be like an extended, crafted campfire yarn in which everyone has the dignity of a name, and in which the animals and plants have equal status with humans in the making of history: “It is not purely human history, but ecological history he gives us… one which interrelates the human and non-human dimensions so intimately.” Murray compared its discursive and laconic tone to the Icelandic sagas. Through his democratic recognition of all life, Rolls enchanted the forest and presented us with a speaking land, a sentient country raucous with sound."[7]

(incomplete)

• Eric Rolls and the Pilliga on ABC Earshot
• Golden disobedience: the history of Eric Rolls
• Eric Rolls readingaustralia.com.au
• UQP authors: Eric Rolls
• In Bed with Phillip: Eric Rolls