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Antonella Gambotto-Burke

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Antonella Gambotto-Burke
BornAntonella Josephine Clementine Gambotto
(1965-09-19) September 19, 1965 (age 59)
Sydney, Australia
Pen nameAntonella Black
Ginger Meggs
Occupation
  • author
  • critic
  • columnist
  • singer-songwriter
NationalityItalian/Australian
Period1980–present
Genrememoir, literary nonfiction
Notable worksThe Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide (2004)
Mama: Love, Motherhood and Revolution (2015)
Notable awards1988 - Cosmopolitan UK New Journalist of the Year Award
Spouse
James Burke
​
​
(m. 2005; div. 2016)​
Children1
Website
mamafeaturingantonella.com

Antonella Gambotto-Burke (née Antonella Gambotto, born 19 September 1965) is an Italian-Australian author, journalist and singer-songwriter based in Kent, England,[1] known for her writing about sex, death and motherhood.[2]

She has been identified as one of the world's most inspiring feminists.[3]

Gambotto-Burke is best known for her memoir The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide, her memoir/maternal feminist polemics Mama: Love, Motherhood and Revolution and Apple: Sex, Drugs, Motherhood and the Recovery of the Feminine.

Early years

Gambotto-Burke was born in North Sydney and moved to East Lindfield on Sydney's North Shore at the age of four, the first child and only daughter of the late Giancarlo Gambotto, whose High Court win against WCP Ltd. changed Australian corporate law, made the front pages of the Australian Financial Review and The Australian, is still featured in corporate law exams, and was the subject of a book edited by Ian Ramsay, Professor of Law at Melbourne University.[4] "I was raised to believe that I could achieve anything", she said in a North Shore Times cover story.[5]

Career

Gambotto-Burke was first published in The Sydney Morning Herald at the age of sixteen – a satire of poet Les Murray's "An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow", later included in Michele Field's anthology Shrinklit (1983). She was first published in The Australian at the age of eighteen. Her first short story was published in literary magazine Billy Blue Magazine in July 1982.[6]

The Sydney Morning Herald named her as a member of Mensa International.[7]

Initial journalistic success and controversy

In 1984, at the age of 19, 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.[8] Her review of Cliff Richard's concert inspired him to sue the music journal. She also wrote "A Man Called Horse", an unflattering 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"; a photograph of Gambotto-Burke and Snow was published with Snow's account of the story in The Guardian).[9] Gambotto-Burke wrote about the experience most recently in September 2006,[10] and the interview has been reprinted for the third time in Nick Cave: Sinner, Saint.[11] 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's best known comic interview – with Warwick Capper,[12] a retired Australian rules footballer, and his wife – is included in The Best Australian Profiles (Black Inc., 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", Matthew Ricketson wrote in 2005.[13]

Her interviewees included Martin Amis, Elle Macpherson, Gérard Depardieu, Ben Elton, Morrissey, Thierry Mugler, Marc Newson, Deepak Chopra, Flavio Briatore, Robert Smith, Erica Jong, Colleen McCullough, Jeffrey Archer, Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, Jerry Hall and Naomi Wolf.[14]

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 died from a cocaine overdose at the age of 38 in 1995. Before leaving London, Gambotto-Burke wrote for The Independent on Sunday, notably a cover story on cardiothoracic surgeons.[15]

In 1989, she returned to Sydney, where she resumed contributing to The Weekend Australian as a feature profile writer and literary critic, and also began writing for The South China Morning Post, The Globe and Mail in Canada, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Vogue and other international publications. Channel Nine Entertainment Director Richard Wilkins noted that "if you're on her wavelength, the interview is a most enjoyable experience. If not, it could be quite disconcerting. The key is to be open and honest with her."[16]

After divorcing, she returned to England with her daughter in 2017 and began working for The Sunday Times and other newspapers.[17] In October 2020, she was revealed as the inspiration for British novelist Martin Amis's most iconic female characters, notably Nicola Six from London Fields (novel) and Zoya from House of Meetings.[18] Amis did not deny their five-year relationship, nor did he publicly explain the many parallels she pointed out in her story to his characters and that of the character "Giovana" in his wife Isabel Fonseca's novel, Attachment, to her own life.

Anthologies

Lunch of Blood (Random House, 1994), her first book and first anthology, peaked at number six on the best-seller 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." In 1997, An Instinct for the Kill, her second anthology, was published to mixed reviews by HarperCollins. (Age critic Katherine Wilson singled out the Capper interview as "laugh-out-loud" funny.)[19]

The introduction to Gambotto-Burke's work in The Best Australian Profiles reads: "Gambotto is probably the closest Australia has come to having a profile writer who is a celebrity in their own right ... and from the early 1990s readers became as interested in Gambotto-Burke as they were in the people she profiled."[20]

In Undercover Agent, 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."[21]

Fiction

She was a contributor to the late Peter Blazey's[22] anthology of short stories Love Cries: Cruel Passions, Strange Desires (1995); in The Sydney Morning Herald, Gail Cork described Gambotto's contribution as "outstanding" and in Who, Margaret Smith noted its "darkly sinister" overtones.[23] "The Astronomer", a short story presaging many of the themes in her first novel, was published in 1989.[24] Eight years later, Gambotto-Burke's first novel, The Pure Weight of the Heart (also featuring an astronomer), was published by Orion Publishing in London, and went to number six on the Sydney Morning Herald's best-seller list. It was also Tatler's book of the month. Author Matthew Condon elaborated 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."[25]

Bereavement

After her brother Gianluca, a Macquarie Bank executive,[26] suicided in 2001, Gambotto-Burke changed. She began reading "obsessively" on death and on suicide, "trying to make sense of the experience, trying to become big enough to let go of my brother. That's what bereavement is about – surrendering the memory, the relationship."[27] To this end, she wrote The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide, a book about her brother's suicide and her engagement to, and the death of, late British GQ editor Michael VerMeulen. In a November 2003 interview with a British magazine, she said: "I wanted to explain depression as a valid emotional response rather than as a disease".[28][29]

Film

Gambotto-Burke was commissioned to write the core love stories of artist David Bromley's[30] series of films, I Could Be Me[31] (narrated by Hugo Weaving), which premiered at the Adelaide Festival in 2008. In an essay, she noted that, "As scripts are founded on what Alan Alda calls the 'subsurface tectonics of emotion', the result can sometimes be a psychic slam dunk."[32] Director Bromley described the film as "like a kaleidoscope of images and it is run by my poetry and short stories by Antonella. And it has a large animation component."[33]

Motherhood

Gambotto-Burke dedicated her first book about parenthood, Mama: Love, Motherhood and Revolution (2015) [34] to her daughter Bethesda, who was born in December 2005. The foreword was written by the French obstetrician and academic Michel Odent.[35][36][37] Gambotto-Burke is a vocal advocate of increased intimacy with children[38] and practised co-sleeping.[39] Controversially, she also home-schools her daughter.[40][41][42]

"The association of maternal-infant separation with developmental havoc is not new, and yet despite the evidence, little change has been made to the way mothers and babies are treated, both by hospitals and by society at large", Gambotto-Burke writes.[43] An excerpt from Mama: Love, Motherhood and Revolution was published in The Guardian.[44]

In 2022, the sequel, Apple: Sex, Drugs, Motherhood and the Recovery of the Feminine, was published. The Weekend Australian published a 3000-word excerpt that attracted controversy on the basis of Gambotto-Burke's strong opinions on the routine administration of obstetric anaesthesia.[45]

In a Life Matters interview with Natasha Mitchell, Dr. John Irvine [46] described Mama: Love, Motherhood and Revolution as being to motherhood what The Female Eunuch was to feminism,[47] and Professor K S Anand,[48] Nils Rosén von Rosenstein Award laureate (2009) and Professor of Paediatrics, Anaesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, described it as “undeniably the most important book of the 21st century”.[49]

Recent work

Gambotto-Burke has in recent years changed her journalistic focus. Her writing about human trafficking has been syndicated around the world. She is also a widely published literary critic and essayist, and has written a number of lead news stories for The Australian's business pages about lawyers and legal issues.[50][51][52][53][54]

Most recently, Gambotto-Burke's focus has been on pornography and gender inequality.[55] [56] [57] [58] [59]

Creation Records Founder and Oasis manager Alan McGee, in a 2019 interview with Gambotto-Burke, described her as "forever surprising".[60]

From June 2019 to February 2020, Gambotto-Burke hosted The Antonella Show, her own programme on London's Boogaloo Radio, which featured guests such as the acclaimed producer and composer Magnus Fiennes,[61] the award-winning sculptor Beth Carter,[62] former PiL bassist Jah Wobble[63] and other internationally recognised artists and writers. She stopped, she announced on air, to commence work on her new book.

In January 2023, she started writing the back page of The Weekend Australian literary section,[64][65] and is now a regular high-profile feature writer for The Daily Mail in London.[66]

Upon completing her book Apple: Sex, Drugs, Motherhood and the Recovery of the Feminine,[67] Gambotto-Burke formed a band, Mama featuring Antonella,[68] with her partner, platinum-selling British music producer Gavin Monaghan.[69][70] Their debut single "I Want What I Want" is scheduled for release in 2023, and they are working on an album.[71]

Bibliography

Anthologies

Novel

Memoirs

Motherhood

As a contributor

  • Write A Letter to Your Twenty Year Old Self, edited by Kim Chandler McDonald (2020).
  • Nick Cave: Sinner, Saint: The True Confessions, 30 Years of Essential Interviews, edited by Mat Snow (Plexus Publishing, 2011).
  • My Favourite Teacher, edited by Robert Macklin (University of New South Wales Press, 2011).[74]
  • Your Mother Would Be Proud: True Tales of Mayhem and Misadventure, edited by Tamara Sheward and Jenny Valentish (Allen & Unwin, 2009).[75]
  • What Is Mother Love?, edited by Selwa Anthony (Penguin, 2008).
  • Some Girls Do ... My Life as a Teenager, edited by Jacinta Tynan (Allen & Unwin, 2007).
  • The Best Australian Profiles, edited by Matthew Ricketson (Black Inc., 2004).
  • The Thoughts of Chairman Stan, by Stan Zemanek (HarperCollins Australia, 1998): afterword by Gambotto-Burke.
  • Love Cries: Cruel Passions, Strange Desires, edited by Peter Blazey (HarperCollins Australia, 1995).
  • This I Believe: 100 Eminent Australians Explore Life's Big Question, edited by John Marsden (writer) (Random House Australia, 1996).
  • ShrinkLit, edited by Michele Field (Penguin, 1983).

Visual media

Scriptwriting

  • I Could Be Me, directed by David Bromley (2008)

Television appearances

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

References

  1. ^ Antonella Gambotto-Burke on Twitter
  2. ^ "Facing the onslaught of maternal intimacy" by Andie Fox, Daily Life, June 5, 2014
  3. ^ The top 47 most empowering feminist quotes of all time Stylist Magazine, 7 March 2023
  4. ^ Gambotto v WCP Ltd: Its Implications for Corporate Regulation, edited by Ian M. Ramsay, Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation, Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1996. ISBN 0-7325-0821-5
  5. ^ "Revolutionary ... in high heels" by Doug Conway, North Shore Times, 26 April 2018.
  6. ^ Billy Blue Magazine covers[permanent dead link‍]. Ross Renwick
  7. ^ "Mensa's Australian connection", The Sydney Morning Herald, 19–20 June 2004.
  8. ^ Introduction, An Instinct for the Kill, by Antonella Gambotto, HarperCollins, 1997
  9. ^ "Bet you think this song is about you" by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 13 December 2008.
  10. ^ "Scum: The Inside Dope" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, Men's Style, Spring 2006.
  11. ^ Nick Cave: Sinner, Saint – The True Confessions, edited by Mat Snow, Plexus Publishing, 2011.
  12. ^ "The Blond Leading the Blond" by Antonella Gambotto, Mode, 1994
  13. ^ "Close Up: Review" by Matthew Ricketson, The Age, 18 June 2005.
  14. ^ 'Antonella Gambotto at The Sydney Institute' Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  15. ^ "Affairs of the Heart" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Independent on Sunday Review, 17 March 1991.
  16. ^ "In the blood" by Murray Waldren, The Australian Magazine, 26–27 March 1994.
  17. ^ "My post-divorce blow-out in New York" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Sunday Times, 8 September 2019
  18. ^ "HE was a married literary giant, SHE was a teenage writer he seduced ...", Antonella Gambotto-Burke blog, 2 October 2020.
  19. ^ "The Best Australian Profiles: Review" by Katherine Wilson, The Age, 23 October 2004.
  20. ^ The Best Australian Profiles, edited by Matthew Ricketson, Black Inc., 2004.
  21. ^ Dining Out with Mr. Lunch, by Murray Waldren, University of Queensland Press, 1999.
  22. ^ The Peter Blazey Fellowship, School of Historical Studies, The Australia Center, 2009
  23. ^ "A Vile Book for Mean and Pitiful People" by Gail Cork, The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 January 1995; "Love Cries" by Margaret Smith, Who, 27 February 1995.
  24. ^ "The Astronomer" by Antonella Gambotto, Billy Blue Magazine, Summer 1989.
  25. ^ "Another phrase of her life" by Matthew Condon, The Age, 22 August 1998.
  26. ^ The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide by Antonella Gambotto-Burke
  27. ^ "Death and the Maiden" by Murray Waldren, The Weekend Australian, 20–21 March 1994.
  28. ^ Soul Searcher by Laura McCreddie, Yoga Magazine, issue 10, November 2003.
  29. ^ I couldn't save my brother from suicide - the biggest killer of British men under 45, by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Telegraph, 31 March 2018.
  30. ^ David Bromley's personal website Archived 12 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine. David Bromley
  31. ^ One of Gambotto-Burke's stories from artist David Bromley's film "I Could Be Me"
  32. ^ "Words in Motion" by Antonella Gambotto, The Weekend Australian, 21–22 May 2005.
  33. ^ "Artist's film draws on a life of images" by Penelope Debelle, The Age, 4 September 2006.
  34. ^ "Antonella Gambotto-Burke's Guide to Motherhood". Elle. April 2015. Archived from the original on 13 April 2015. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  35. ^ "Mothers 'risk losing ability to give birth' " by Sian Griffiths and Sanya Burgess, The Sunday Times, 24 May 2015]
  36. ^ "Women risk losing ability to give birth naturally" by Rozina Sabur, The Daily Telegraph, 24 May 2015
  37. ^ "Do we need midwives book claims giving birth naturally getting harder", The Australian, 25 May 2015
  38. ^ "In defence of attachment parenting" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Australian, 26 May 2014]
  39. ^ "The Nine Questions Everyone Asks About Cosleeping". Archived from the original on 29 April 2014. Retrieved 22 April 2014.
  40. ^ 'How home-schooling helps me and my daughter bond, by author of Mama, a new book' by Mark Footer, South China Morning Post, 30 May 2015
  41. ^ 'How it feels to ... home-school your daughter' by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Sunday Times Magazine, 29 September 2019
  42. ^ 'Don't give up—you can still homeschool like a boss (even when you feel like a total failure)' by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Telegraph, 5 May 2020
  43. ^ "How home-schooling helps me and my daughter bond, by author of Mama, a new book", by Mark Footer, South China Morning Post, 30 May 2015
  44. ^ "Should women really be rushing back to work after giving birth?" The Guardian, July 11, 2015
  45. ^ 'Drugging women for childbirth should be a crime', by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Weekend Australian, 11 June 2022
  46. ^ Dr. John Irvine, Read Clinic profile Archived 29 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  47. ^ Life Matters
  48. ^ 'Kanwaljeet S. Anand biography - Stanford University' Retrieved 28 March 2023
  49. ^ 'Antonella Gambotto-Burke: Pinter & Martin bio' Retrieved 28 March 2023
  50. ^ "Working for Justice" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Australian, 16 July 2010
  51. ^ "Business demands fixed fees as revolt builds against billable hours" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Australian, 20 August 2010
  52. ^ "Alternative billing hours the way of the future" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Australian, 20 August 2010
  53. ^ "Corporates taken to the cleaners with billing abuses" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Australian, 27 August 2010
  54. ^ "Battle to curb billing abuses to gain impetus" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Australian, 24 September 2010
  55. ^ "Upskirting shows how porn culture has caused a breakdown in respect for women" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Sunday Times Magazine, 3 February 2019
  56. ^ "Gender wars heat up with Butterfly Politics by Catharine A. MacKinnon" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Weekend Australian, 22 July 2017
  57. ^ "Sex positivity activists take note: porn harms women" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Australian, 3 August 2023
  58. ^ "Yes, porn is a social blight. But the demonisation of men has to stop" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Weekend Australian, 13 August 2022
  59. ^ "Flawed feminist take on sex-doll trend" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Weekend Australian, January 23, 2023
  60. ^ "Alan McGee interviews Antonella Gambotto-Burke", 27 May 2019
  61. ^ 'Boogaloo Radio London' January 2020
  62. ^ 'Antonella Gambotto-Burke interviews Beth Carter' Boogaloo Radio London, December 2019
  63. ^ 'Antonella Gambotto-Burke interviews Jah Wobble' Boogaloo Radio London, November 2019
  64. ^ Personal instagram announcement, 21 April 2021
  65. ^ Personal instagram announcement, 16 November 2022
  66. ^ "Martin Amis Writes His 'Last Long Novel'".
  67. ^ Modern birthing practices are destroying the world: An interview with Antonella Gambotto-Burke 3 April 2022. Retrieved 28 March 2023
  68. ^ 'Mama feat. Antonella - official website' Retrieved 28 March 2023
  69. ^ 'Industry Focus interview with Gavin Monaghan' It's All Indie, 20 September 2018
  70. ^ 'Mama feat. Antonella - Instagram' Retrieved 28 March 2023]
  71. ^ 'Mama feat. Antonella: official website bio' 28 March 2023. Retrieved 28 March 2023
  72. ^ Pinter & Martin website
  73. ^ Pinter & Martin website
  74. ^ Robert Macklin Archived 10 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine at the Melbourne Writers' Festival, 2009
  75. ^ Your Mother Would Be Proud Archived 11 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine – official website
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