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David Brooks (author)

Australian author

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ5231788 ↗
Source-derived summary

David Gordon Brooks (born 1953) is an Australian poet, novelist, short-fiction writer, and essayist. He is the author of four published novels, four collections of short stories, and five collections of poetry, and his work has won or been shortlisted for major prizes. Brooks is a highly intellectual writer, and his fiction has drawn frequent comparison with the writers Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.

He studied poetics at the Australian National University (ANU) and in Toronto, Canada, from 1971 to 1986. He has been a hand-press printer of high-quality works, and was an editor of the Australian poetry journals New Poetry, Helix and Southerly. He taught literature at several Australian universities, followed by the creative writing program at Sydney University from 1999 to 2013.

Early life and education

David Gordon Brooks was born in Canberra in 1953. In late 1954 his father, a public servant in the Department of Foreign Affairs, was posted to Athens as an immigration attaché, and Brooks' early childhood was spent in Greece and Yugoslavia, where his father served in 1958.

Upon the family's return to Australia, Brooks attended Turner Infants, Turner Primary, and Canberra High schools. His last year of high school was spent in Cleveland, Ohio, on an American Field Service scholarship.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “David Brooks (author)” as australian author. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1953, 1971, 1986, 1999—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1953-01-12. The account is most persuasive where David, Brooks and author can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as australian author. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5231788. VIAF identifies the subject as 84533534. The Library of Congress control number is n83225113. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1971, 1986 and 1999.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “David Brooks (author)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow David Brooks (author) primary sources, David Brooks (author) archive and David research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “David Brooks (author)”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “David Brooks (author)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.