Bruce Bennett, a great friend of Australian Literature, died earlier this week. The following tribute is reprinted from the Auslit site: http://www.austlit.edu.au/

“Emeritus Professor Bruce Bennett, AO, has died at his home in Canberra. A Rhodes Scholar, Professor Bennett was a graduate of the Universities of Western Australia, Oxford and London. He taught at the University of Western Australia from 1968 to 1992 and at the University of New South Wales, Canberra from 1993 until his retirement.

Professor Bennett wrote and edited numerous books and articles on Australian literature, culture and society. He was still working in the final weeks of his life. As his friend and colleague Professor Paul Eggert commented: ‘One remarkable thing is that he went out as a scholar, “with the ink still wet on the page”—as Mary Gilmore said of her mother’. In recent months, Professor Bennett, with Anne Pender, completed a book on Australian expatriate writers. Another title, ‘The Spying Game: An Australian Angle’ is also with the publisher.

Professor Bennett was a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Among his many professional roles, he chaired the Modern Language Association of America’s Division 33 (Literatures in English Other Than British and American) and was Vice-Chair of the Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. In 2005-2006, he was the Group of Eight Chair at The Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Professor Bennett was chair of the AustLit Board from its beginnings until 2004. AustLit’s Board, partners and contributors extend their deepest sympathy to Bruce’s wife, Trish, and to their family.’

Auslit have established a tribute page at  http://www.austlit.edu.au/news/2012/04/17/remembering_bruce_bennett.html where friends and colleagues are invited to share their memories of Bruce.