Antonella Gambotto-Burke

Antonella Gambotto-Burke (née Antonella Gambotto, born 19 September 1965) is an Australian author and journalist.

Gambotto-Burke has written one novel, "The Pure Weight of the Heart", two anthologies, "Lunch of Blood" and "An Instinct for the Kill", and a memoir, "", which has been published in three languages and is due to be published in two more in 2008. "The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide" concerns her brother's suicide and her engagement to, and the death of, the late "GQ" editor Michael VerMeulen. Her best known comic interview - with Warwick Capper, a retired Australian footballer, and his wife - is included in "The Best Australian Profiles" (Black, 2004). "The best profiles lodge deep in the public mind, such as ... Antonella Gambotto's cheerfully dopey Warwick and Joanne Capper, which presaged by years the arrival of "Kath & Kim", wrote a critic in "The Age" on 18 June 2005. She is also a member of Mensa. [ [http://www.brokenanklebooks.com/AuthorsGambottoPR.htm Antonella Gambotto-Burke Press Release] ]

Biography

Gambotto-Burke was born and raised on Sydney's North Shore, the first child and only daughter of Giancarlo Gambotto, whose lawsuit against WCP Ltd. changed Australian corporate law, made the front pages of "The Australian Financial Review" and "The Australian", and is still featured in corporate law exams.

Raised a Roman Catholic, [, Broken Ankle Books, 2004] she attended Lindfield East Primary School and Killara High School, where she distinguished herself through debate and academic achievement. [The Green Years yearbooks, 1978 - 1982] In 1982, she was selected to partake in the State Debating Trials a year early. [, Broken Ankle Books, 2004] Gambotto-Burke was first published in "The Sydney Morning Herald" at the age of fifteen - a satire of poet Les Murray's "An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow", later included in Michele Field's anthology Shrinklit (1983) - and in "The Australian" at the age of eighteen. Her first short story was published in literary magazine "Billy Blue" in July, 1982.

In 1984, she moved to London, where she was employed as a music critic by "NME" and where, on the advice of an editor, she wrote under the pseudonyms Antonella Black and Ginger Meggs. Her review of Cliff Richard's concert inspired him to sue the music journal. She also wrote [http://www.rocksbackpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=3707 "A Man Called Horse"] , the "ZigZag" cover story of alternative rock star Nick Cave, in which she documented his heroin-induced stupor (in retaliation, he wrote a song about her and British journalist Mat Snow entitled "Scum". Gambotto-Burke wrote about the experience most recently in the September 2006 issue of "Men's Style Australia" magazine). The Cave interview, and the story behind it, are also included in her book Lunch of Blood, while Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds included a version of "Scum" on their 2005 box set, "B-Sides And Rarities".

Gambotto-Burke won UK "Cosmopolitan" magazine's New Journalist of the Year Award in 1988. That same year, she became engaged to the UK GQ editor Michael VerMeulen. In 1989 she returned to Sydney, after the demise of her relationship with VerMeulen, who would later die from a cocaine overdose at the age of 38 in 1995. Before leaving London, she wrote for "The Independent on Sunday", notably a cover story on cardiothoracic surgeons ("Affairs of the Heart", 17 March 1991).

In 1989, she returned to Sydney, where she resumed contributing to The Weekend Australian as a feature profile writer and senior literary critic, and began writing for "The South China Morning Post", "The Globe and Mail" in Canada, "Harper's Bazaar", "Men's Style Australia", and other international publications.

"Lunch of Blood", her first book and first anthology, was published by Random House in 1994, and peaked at number six on the bestseller lists. The Newcastle Herald observed that Gambotto-Burke's "command of language is delicious to the point where one wonders which came first, her wish to display her ability or the desire to share her impressions." Author Colleen McCullough commented that Gambotto-Burke's "integrity, adamantine wit, and ability to cut through the most elaborate psychological defence systems establish her as one of the finest writers this country has ever produced." [An Instinct for the Kill, HarperCollins, 1997, back cover] In 1997, An Instinct for the Kill, her second anthology, was published to mixed reviews by HarperCollins.

In "Undercover Agent", writer Murray Waldren noted that "an interview with [Gambotto-Burke] often has the studied savagery of the corrida amid the crystal cruet ambience of high tea at the Ritz. Such ritualistic disembowelling, highly entertaining and in stark contrast to the asinine, PR-driven pap of most modern profiles, leave the gored stirred and very shaken." [Dining Out with Mr. Lunch, by Murray Waldren, University of Queensland Press, 1999]

Her first novel, The Pure Weight of the Heart was published by Orion Publishing in 1998, and went to number six on the Sydney Morning Herald's bestseller list that year and was Tatler's book of the month.

After her brother committed suicide in 2001, Gambotto-Burke relocated to Byron Bay, the renowned countercultural haven, where she began to practice Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and wrote "The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide". In a November 2003 interview with "Yoga Magazine" UK, she said: "I wanted to explain depression as a valid emotional response rather than as a disease ... I am not ashamed of my brother, and I do not see death as tragic - deliberate ignorance and fear are tragedies, not death."

Gambotto-Burke's essay, "The Language of the Dead", originally an extract from "The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide" appears in [http://www.lifechangingexperiences.org/ "Some Girls Do ... My Life As A Teenager"] , the charity anthology edited by Jacinta Tynan published by Allen & Unwin in April, 2007.

In a 2008 interview with Arena (magazine), Gambotto-Burke remarked that " [o] ur idea of what it is to be human is a fragile construct, and, in essence, more a cultural/political prescription than representative of true human experience. Men are made to understand that (a) emotion is feminine terrain, (b) that the experience of emotion lessens or erodes masculinity, and (c) that reason is superior to emotion. But emotion is not gendered. We all love, fear, celebrate, grieve. There is absolutely no relationship to gender, other than the one that exists in our cultural mythology. How can reason separated from emotion? The very importance with which we imbue reason is a value judgment ... This fantasy of objectivity distorts all our lives. To be human is, by definition, to be subjective. You can only perceive the world through the prisms of your age, gender, physical limitations, culture, and so on."

On 19 June 2004, "The Sydney Morning Herald" named her as a high-profile member of Mensa International.

Also in 2004, she returned to Sydney. She is now also a regular contributor to "My Child" magazine. Her column, Raising Bethesda, concerns life with her husband, Alexander Gambotto-Burke, of the banking family. He is a columnist for "The Guardian" in London, IT writer, and, since 2006, an editorial consultant for Broken Ankle Books (who published "The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide" in 2004). She wrote about his marriage proposal in the July 2008 issue of Vogue. [ [http://antonellagambotto.com/Nonfiction40.htm What Watershed?, Vogue, July 2008] ] Their daughter Bethesda was born in December 2005, and baptized in 2007 by Bishop John Shelby Spong.

Gambotto-Burke has also in recent years become a vocal opponent of cyber pornography, and pornography as a whole. Blog critics of Gambotto-Burke describe her as shrilly denouncing pornography, but her work on pornography has been published internationally, most recently in [http://antonellagambotto.com/PornographyCyber00.htm Men's Style] , [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21693483-5003900,00.html The Weekend Australian] and The South China Morning Post.

Edward De Bono, who wrote the foreword to Gambotto-Burke's second anthology of interviews, An Instinct for the Kill, tells of her philosophical position:

"Antonella is not afraid of words, ideas, her own opinions or the opinions of others. Perception is personal so truth is also personal. This is much more like Protagoras than like Plato. For Protagoras, perception was the only truth - but it was changeable. For Plato, the fascist, truth was what you had reached when you thought it was the absolute."

Author Matthew Condon elaborated on Gambotto-Burke in The Age: "Her razor eye for the architecture of pretension and her ability to record untidied dialogue, especially the way it can betray the human mind and soul, have made her an object of fear and derision. To have been 'Gambottoed' is to have had a vein opened."

Gambotto-Burke was commissioned to write the core love stories of artist David Bromley's series of films, "I Could Be Me" (narrated by Hugo Weaving), which premiered at the [http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/Show/Detail.aspx?p=5&c=5&id=88 Adelaide Festival] in 2008. "It's like a kaleidoscope of images and it's run by my poetry and short stories by Antonella," Bromley told The Age. "And it has a large animation component." [ [http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts/artists-film-draws-on-a-life-of-images/2006/09/03/1157222006698.html Artist's film draws on a life of images] ]

She is also a widely-published literary critic and essayist. In August, 2006, Gambotto-Burke told Vogue that, "Language shapes consciousness and from consciousness, our world is shaped."Her article on the emotional pitfalls of IVF "Precious Progeny of a Petri Dish", revolving around Nichola Bedos' "IVF & Ever After: The Emotional Needs of Families" appeared in The Australian on July 28, 2007, her controversial interview with rock star Marilyn Manson "Whom do you hate" was published in The Weekend Australian on September 29, 2007, and her critique of the late academic and author Donald Horne's memoir of dying, "Love but no awe as mortality closes in", was published in The Weekend Australian on October 20, 2007. On December 8, 2007, her critique of Michael Gates Gill's bestseller, "How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else" was published in The Weekend Australian, as was her critique of Isabel Allende's new memoir, The Sum of Our Days, on April 5, 2008.

Gambotto-Burke's website indicates that she is currently working on her fifth book. She is now also writing for The Mail on Sunday, and Arena (magazine).

On April 7, 2008, "What is Mother Love?", the celebrity anthology of mothering anecdotes to which Gambotto-Burke contributed, was published by Penguin, and her work is included in two anthologies that will be published internationally in 2009.

Bibliography

*"Lunch of Blood" (Random House, 1994)
*"An Instinct for the Kill" (HarperCollins, 1997)
*"The Pure Weight of the Heart" (Orion, 1999)
*"" (Broken Ankle Books, 2004)

Film

*"I Could Be Me", directed by artist David Bromley (2007)

Television

Gambotto-Burke has appeared on programs such as "Beauty & The Beast" (Channel Ten, Foxtel), "The Midday Show" (Channel 9), "Meet the Press" (SBS), and performed cameos on Paul Fenech's SBS sitcom "Pizza".

External links

* [http://www.antonellagambottoburke.com Author's official website]
* [http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts/artists-film-draws-on-a-life-of-images/2006/09/03/1157222006698.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 I Could Be Me]
* [http://antonellagambottoburke.com/PornographyCyber00.htm "The Impact of Pornography on Men" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke] :* [http://happyantipodean.blogspot.com/2007/04/scarlett-johansson-in-mens-style.html Criticism of "The Impact of Pornography on Men"]
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2102-962922,00.html Sunday Times Review-at-a-Glance]
* [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22479618-16947,00.html Marilyn Manson on porn, art, and personal responsibility by Antonella Gambotto-Burke]
* [http://antonellagambottoburke.com/PornographyCT00.htm "Traffic Cop - The Story of Raymond Bechard and Child Trafficking" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke] Men's Style Magazine October 2007
* [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23466521-5003900,00.html Novelist's Purest Symphony of Being, by Antonella Gambotto-Burke]
* [http://www.theeclipsepodcast.com itunes podcast of The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide]

References