Milutinovic, Iris, 1910-

Australian author and radio broadcaster.

Iris Milutinovic, born in 1908 or 1910 to a Welsh mother (Florence Medford Burnell) and an English-born father (Frederick Ebenezer Osborne), was brought up in Cooee, Tasmania, where her father managed the Van Dieman Land Company brickworks. She lived in Cooee until her first marriage to Irishman Stanismore Ryan, a marriage Milutinovic describes as a too-young, very unhappy one. She then endured a long lonely period before meeting her second husband, a Yugoslavian immigrant named Milor Milutinovic, whom she married in 1951.

Milor, having survived years of fighting and then internment in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II, moved to Australia in 1949 for a fresh start. He later became a naturalized citizen of Australia, but struggled ever after with the language and culture of his adopted country. A substantial portion of Mrs. Milutinovic's literary work is given over to discussion of the language difficulties and cultural clashes experienced by immigrants to Australia.

Mrs. Milutinovic describes herself as one over-sized, elderly somewhat finicky Tasmanian married to one long, lean infinitely kind but also very alien Serb migrant. She lived with her second husband outside Albany in Western Australia for almost 30 years before retiring in 1977 to a cottage by the Mersey River in East Devenport, Tasmania. Her interests include people, literature, fishing, gardening and writing.

Prior to beginning her career as a writer, Milutinovic worked in Public Service during World War II, was a bookkeeper/receptionist for Ansetts, and a timekeeper/clerk at Cheynes Beach Whaling Station. She was working for the Post Office when she met her husband Milor.

Except for the usual adolescent verse, Milutinovic didn't begin to write seriously until the 1950s when she began writing scripts and recording radio talks for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (A.B.C.). She later sold short stories to various magazines including the Bulletin, Woman's Day, The Epicurean, The Texas Quarterly and Overland . She has work published in three anthologies and has had two books published, Talk English Carn't Ya (a novel, 1978) and I'm Still Here, Aren't I? (a short story collection, 1985). The novel, based on her husband Milor's experiences and written from his point of view, is about the hardships and difficulties of being an immigrant without fluency in the language of one's adopted country.

Her literary awards include the 1975 State of Victoria Short Story Award (for The Guppy ) and the Jessie Litchfield Award for Literature for 1978 from the Bread and Cheese Club, a Melbourne literary society. Mrs. Milutinovic was a founding member of the West Australian Writers Fellowship (a branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers), as well a member of the Australian Society of Authors, and the Business and Professional Women's Club of Albany.

Milutinovic suffers from auricular fibrillation, a heart condition that at times made writing, and especially typing, very difficult.

Iris Milutinovic used various pen names during her writing career. Those represented in this collection are Emma Atkins, Bessie Bunter, Janet Burton, Ian Fidler, Jevelyn, Jane Kay, Jay Kay, Janet King, I. Miller, M. Miller, Ivan Millet, Iris Obsorne (her maiden name), I. Maggie Ostin and Joan Todd.