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Dymphna Cusack's Popularity Abroad

by air mail from MORNA CONDELL

LONDON.β€” When the Australian novelist Dymphna Casack left' London for Prance this

week, fonr interesting missions' concerning her work had been completed. ? A book that was written by her maid between 1944-47 uid which Miss Cusack brought to England with her three years'ago is to be pub lished by Constable next year. It is ta be called 'Caddie β€”the Story of a Sydney Bar maid.' Caddie remains anonymous, but Miss Cusack does say this much of her: A woman who was 'not just a maid but a domestic treasure' looked after her self and her fellow writer Florence James when they were writing 'Come in Spin ner' in the Blue Mountains. She admitted she went to help them because they were writers, and gradually told them the story of her life. Her idea was that they should write it for her, but they suggested she write it herself. She did. and after five drafts it was completed.

Miss Cusack brought it to England, and Michael Sad leir of Constable's accepted It on condition that Miss Cusack wrote a long intro duction describing how the took came to be written. The ntroduction was written in Jaujon. on the west coast of Ranee, where Miss Cusack iaa been living. ? The French translation if 'Come hi Spinner,' which

has proved one of the all time best-sellers to be writ ten by Australians, comes out in November, and later in Dutch and Danish. Miss Cusack's later novel, 'Say No to Death,' is also being translated into French and Swedish. ? Her first play to be pro duced in England, 'Stand Still, Time' is to begin at the Irving Theatre, in London's West End, in January. This play, already broadcast in Australia, deals with a sol dier who, having been posted missing, presumed dead, re turns to find his wife mar ried to his best friend. a Her latest novel, 'South- ern Steel'β€” the third she has written since coming abroad three years ago β€” is to be published by Constable in March. The story is set in New castle, where Miss Cusack lived for two 'fascinating' years during the war. 'As the first enemy shell to hit Newcastle landed in my front yard, I feel I can write with some authority about wartime Newcastle,' Miss Cusack told me before

she left 'for Banyulssur Mer, a French coastal village almost on the Spanish bor der. As Australian and New Zealand representative on the committee or the Au thors' World Peace Appeal, Miss Casack goes to Pans on the way to ask the Existen tialist philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, to come to Lon don to speak at the appeal's conference in December.

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