Richard Flanagan (1)

Monday Morning Musings: Join us each month for a lively discussion of titles by debut authors. We meet the 2nd Monday at 10:30am. The book for August 10th is: Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Summary: A novel of love and war that traces the life of one man--an Australian surgeon--from a prisoner-of-war camp on the Thai-Burma Death Railway during World War II, up to the present. (DoctorFate)… (mere)

2014 Man Booker Prize Descended from Irish convicts transported to Van Diemens Land (later renamed Tasmania) during the Great Famine, Richard Flanagan was born in his native island in 1961, the fifth of six children. He spent his childhood in the mining town of Rosebery and left school at sixteen to work as a bush laborer. He later attended the University of Tasmania, graduating with first class honours in 1982. The following year he was awarded a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford University. He later worked as a laborer and river guide. He wrote four history books before turning to fiction. His first novel, the much celebrated Death of a River Guide (1994), tells the tale of Aljaz Cosini, a guide on the Franklin River who lies drowning as he relives his life and the lives of his forbears. It won major Australian literary prizes including the 1996 National Fiction Award and was described by the Times Literary Supplement as 'one of the most auspicious debuts in Australian writing.' His second novel, The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997), set in the Central Highlands of Tasmania, tells the story of Slovenian immigrants. It was similarly critically acclaimed and has sold over 150,000 copies in Australia, an unprecedented figure there for a literary novel. It won the Australian Booksellers Book of the Year Award and the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction. Flanagan's first two novels, declared Kirkus Reviews, 'rank with the finest fiction out of Australia since the heyday of Patrick White.' His third novel, Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish (2001), is set at the Macquarie Harbour Penal Station and is based on the life of Billy Gould, a convict artist who has a love affair with a young black woman in 1828. It won Best Book for the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize in the South East Asia & South Pacific Region. In addition to Australia and the USA, his novels have been, or will be, published in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Britain, Germany, Holland, and France. He directed an acclaimed feature film based on The Sound of One Hand Clapping, which had its world premiere in competition at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Golden Bear for best film. His recent books include The Unknown Terrorist, (2007), set in contemporary Sydney, andWanting (2008), set in both nineteenth century Tasmania and Britain. Richard Flanagan lives in Tasmania with his wife and three children. He is a keen canoeist, having canoed the Franklin River thirteen times, and was a member of the first expedition to canoe the Jane River and Gordon Gorge (one of his nonfiction works is A Terrible Beauty - History of the Gordon (1985).

Location: Street: 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. City: Chicago, Province: Illinois Postal Code: 60637-1507 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)

Hattery and Green Apple Books Present: Fact into Fiction: Richard Flanagan in conversation with Stephen Sparks Wednesday, September 10 at 7pm Click here for ticket info Richard Flanagan is arguably Australia’s greatest living writer. He’s an adventurer, a Rhodes scholar, a film maker, and the acclaimed author of Gould’s Book of Fish, The unknown terrorist, and Wanting, among others. Much of his work is inspired by fact and woven into haunting and powerful fiction. His most recent novel, The narrow road to the deep north, explores friendship, memory, and how war illuminates love. To write the book, Flanagan drew deeply from conversations with his late father about his experience as a slave laborer on the Thai-Burma Railway during World War Two. In acute historic detail, and with great humility, Flanagan has written his most personal novel yet - to wide acclaim. Join Flanagan when he comes to Hattery for a conversation about the spinning of fact into fiction, the paradox of love and war, and the importance of storytelling.

Location: Street: Hattery Additional: 414 Brannan St. City: San Francisco, Province: California Postal Code: 94107 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)

Description

August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma Death Railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his affair with his uncle’s young wife two years earlier. His life is a daily struggle to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from pitiless beatings. Until he receives a letter that will change him forever.

Moving deftly from the POW camp to contemporary Australia, from the experiences of Dorrigo and his comrades to those of the Japanese guards, this savagely beautiful novel tells a story of love, death, and family, exploring the many forms of good and evil, war and truth, guilt and transcendence, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost. About the Author Richard Flanagan is the author of five previous novels—Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould’s Book of Fish, The unknown terrorist, and Wanting—which have received numerous honors and have been published in twenty-six countries. He lives in Tasmania.

Location: Street: 160 Courthouse Sq City: Oxford, Province: Mississippi Postal Code: 38655-3914 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)

From the winner of Australia's National Fiction Prize, author of the hugely acclaimed Gould's Book of Fish, a magisterial, Rashomon-like novel of love and war that traces the life of one man from World War II to the present.

In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma Death Railway in 1943, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife two years earlier. His life is a daily struggle to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from pitiless beatings. Until he receives a letter that will change him forever. Moving deftly from the POW camp to contemporary Australia, from the experiences of Dorrigo and his comrades to those of the Japanese guards, this savagely beautiful novel tells a story of death, love, and family; exploring the many forms of good and evil, war and truth, guilt and transcendence, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.

Richard Flanagan is the author of five previous novels—Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould’s Book of Fish, The Unknown Terrorist, and Wanting—which have received numerous honors and have been published in twenty-six countries. He lives in Tasmania.

Location: Street: Porter Square Shopping Center Additional: 25 White Street City: Cambridge, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 02140 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)