LibGuides: English: Reckoning

Useful Links

The Guardian: Magda Szubanski: 'Some of the things my father told me were unbearable'
"The comic actor explains how writing her memoir Reckoning took her back to some gruelling family history to provide ‘the slowest kind of catharsis’"
The Sydney Morning Herald: Magda unmasked: Our favourite comic actor faces up to some difficult home truths
"The great hunger, as Magda Szubanski calls it, began when she was 14. She would slip out of bed in the middle of the night and pad into the kitchen to raid the biscuit tin. She ate and ate, but still she was hungry. Her appetite was voracious. Insatiable. She got fat. 'I watched with relief and despair as my flesh armour thickened,' she remembers. 'I crawled deep into the folds of myself and hid there.'"
The Sydney Morning Herald: Reckoning review: How Magda Szubanski became the comic genius she is today
"Magda Szubanski is such a key figure in Australian comedy that any memoir she cared to write would be a major publishing event. What no one could have predicted was that this reflection on her life would be so sensitive and searching, colourful and vividly composed."
Text Publishing: Reckoning Book Club Notes
A collection of questions that are useful for analysis and discussion of this text.
Conversations with Richard Fidler, ABC Radio: Magda Szubanski: my father, the assassin
A candid account of the life of one of Australia's most-loved comic performers. This conversation was recorded at a Wheeler Centre event at Melbourne's Athenaeum Theatre.

Video: Magda Szubanski on RECKONING

In this extraordinary memoir, Magda Szubanski describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood, haunted by the demons of her father’s espionage activities in wartime Poland and by her secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family. With courage and compassion she addresses her own frailties and fears, and asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on.

Duration: 2:45

Video: Who Do You Think You Are?: Magda Szubanski

Magda is the actor behind many of Australia's most loved comic characters including Sharon in Kath & Kim and Mrs Hoggett in the internationally acclaimed Babe and Babe: Pig in the City. Magda has always been a fearless performer but where is that courage from? Magda was born to a Polish father and a Scottish mother. The family migrated to Australia when Magda was a child. To better understand how world events have shaped her family, Magda will trace the lives of two ancestors. Both were forced to make grim choices and both were forced to confront the brutality...

Production Year: 2010

Duration: 51:47

Video: 'I feel fricking fantastic': Magda Szubanski reveals dark road to happiness

Having written a memoir which she describes as cathartic, Magda Szubanski talks to Leigh Sales about her Polish family history, inherited guilt, coming out, and exploring the 'darker corners' of her psyche.

Duration: 7:55

Video: Magda Szubanski on The Project TEN

Beloved Australian comedian and international film star, Magda Szubanski, comes out officially on Channel 10's The Project in order to highlight the issue of gay marriage.

Duration: 7:19

Books available in the NCC

Reckoning by Magda Szubanski
ISBN: 9781925355413
Magda Szubanski's childhood in a suburban migrant family was haunted by the demons of her father's life in wartime Poland. At nineteen, fighting in the Warsaw resistance, he had been recruited to a secret counter-intelligence execution squad. His mission was to assassinate Polish traitors who were betraying Jewish citizens to the Nazis. The legacy of her father's bravery left the young Magda with profound questions about her family story. As she grew up, the assassin's daughter had to navigate her own frailties and fears, including a lifelong struggle with weight gain and an increasing awareness of her own sexuality. With courage and compassion Szubanski's memoir asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on.
Reckoning (eBook) by Magda Szubanski
ISBN: 9781922253224
Heartbreaking, joyous, traumatic, intimate and revelatory, Reckoning is the book where Magda Szubanski, one of Australia's most beloved performers, tells her story. In this extraordinary memoir, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood, haunted by the demons of her father''s espionage activities in wartime Poland and by her secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family.
Insight Comparisons: Magda Szubanski's Reckoning & Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake
ISBN: 9781925778083
Insight Comparisons are the perfect resources for Area of Study 1: Reading and comparing texts in the new VCE English/EAL Study Design. Each title provides a comprehensive, in-depth guide to a pair of texts, including a detailed study of their key features and a close analysis of their shared ideas, issues and themes.

Video: How I taught myself to be more courageous | Magda Szubanski | TEDxSydney

In this powerful talk, celebrated Australian author and actress Magda Szubanski uses lessons from her Nazi-fighting family to explore where courage originates. She asks if there is such thing as intergenerational courage, and if so, did it help her to help win a 21st-century civil rights battle?

Duration: 15:26

Video: Kath and Kim - Season 1 Episode 1

Kath's recently married daughter Kim moves back in insisting her marriage to Brett is over. Kim begins to suspect Brett is having an affair and has her second best friend Sharon stalk him.

Production Year: 2002

Duration: 25:30