Gerald Murnane
Encyclopedia

Life

Murnane was born in Coburg
Coburg, Victoria
Coburg is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 8 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moreland, although a handful of properties on Coburg's Eastern boundary are located in the City of Darebin...

, Melbourne, and has almost never left the state of Victoria. Parts of his childhood were spent in Bendigo and the Western District. In 1956 he matriculated from De La Salle College Malvern
De La Salle College Malvern
De La Salle College is a Roman Catholic Independent school for boys located in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern. The College was founded in 1912 by the De La Salle Brothers, a religious order based on the teachings of Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, and is a member of the Associated Catholic Colleges....

.

Murnane briefly trained for the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1957. He abandoned this path, however, instead becoming a teacher in primary schools (from 1960 to 1968), and at the Victoria Racing Club's
Victoria Racing Club
The Victoria Racing Club was founded in 1864. It was formed following the disbanding of the Victoria Turf Club and the Victoria Jockey Club. A legacy passed from the Victoria Turf Club was the annual “race that stops a nation”, the Melbourne Cup, which was first contested in 1861.From its...

 Apprentice Jockeys' School. He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...

 in 1969, then worked in the Victorian Education Department until 1973. From 1980 he began to teach creative writing at various tertiary institutions.

In 1969 Murnane moved to the Melbourne suburb of Macleod
Macleod, Victoria
Macleod is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 14 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the cities of Banyule and Darebin. At the 2006 Census, Macleod had a population of 8083...

. After the death of his wife in 2009 Murnane moved to Goroke in country Victoria, where he is involved in amateur yabbie judging.

He married in 1966 and has three sons.

Work

Murnane's first two books, Tamarisk Row (1974) and A Lifetime on Clouds (1976), seem to be semi-autobiographical accounts of his childhood and adolescence. Both are composed largely of very long but grammatical sentences.

In 1982, he attained his mature style with The Plains, a short novel about a young filmmaker who travels to a fictive country far within Australia, where his failure to make a film is perhaps his most profound achievement. The novel is both a metaphysical parable about appearance and reality, and a parodic examination of traditions and cultural horizons. The novel depicts an abstracted Australia, akin to something out of mythology or fable. The novel was followed by: Landscape With Landscape (1985), Inland (1988), Velvet Waters (1990), and Emerald Blue (1995). A book of essays, Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs
Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs
Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs is the title of a collection of essays by Melbourne writer Gerald Murnane, published by Giramondo Publishing in 2005....

, appeared in 2005, and a new work of fiction, Barley Patch, was released in 2009. All of these books are concerned with the relation between memory, image, and landscape, and frequently with the relation between fiction and non-fiction.

Murnane is mainly known within Australia. A seminar was held on his work at the University of Newcastle
University of Newcastle, Australia
The University of Newcastle is an Australian public university that was established in 1965. The University's main and largest campus is located in Callaghan, a suburb of Newcastle in New South Wales...

 in 2001. Murnane does, however, also have a following in other countries, especially Sweden and the United States, where The Plains was published in 1985 and reprinted in 2004 (New Issues Poetry & Prose), and where Dalkey Archive Press
Dalkey Archive Press
Dalkey Archive Press is a publisher of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism in Illinois in the United States, specializing in the publication or republication of lesser known, often avant-garde works...

 has recently issued Barley Patch and will be reprinting Inland in 2012.

Interests

Murnane is an avid follower of horse racing
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...

, which often serves as a metaphor in his work. A documentary, Words and Silk – The Real and Imaginary Worlds of Gerald Murnane (1989), directed by Philip Tyndall, examined Murnane's childhood, work, approach to the craft of writing, and interest in horseracing.

He taught himself to read Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

.

Awards

  • The Patrick White Award
    Patrick White Award
    The Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize established by Patrick White. White used his 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature award to establish a trust for this prize....

     (1999).
  • A Special Award in the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards
    New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards
    The New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards were established in 1979 by the New South Wales Premier Neville Wran. Commenting on its purpose, Wran said: "We want the arts to take, and be seen to take, their proper place in our social priorities...

     (2007).
  • The Australia Council emeritus award (2008).
  • The Melbourne Prize for Literature (2009).

Books

  • (1974) Tamarisk Row. William Heinemann Australia, Melbourne.
  • (1976) A Lifetime on Clouds. William Heinemann Australia, Melbourne.
  • (1982) The Plains. The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne.
  • (1985) Landscape With Landscape. Norstrilia Press, Melbourne.
  • (1988) Inland. William Heinemann Australia, Melbourne. Dalkey Archive Press
    Dalkey Archive Press
    Dalkey Archive Press is a publisher of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism in Illinois in the United States, specializing in the publication or republication of lesser known, often avant-garde works...

    , 2012.
  • (1990) Velvet Waters. McPhee Gribble, Melbourne.
  • (1995) Emerald Blue. McPhee Gribble, Melbourne.
  • (2005) Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs
    Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs
    Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs is the title of a collection of essays by Melbourne writer Gerald Murnane, published by Giramondo Publishing in 2005....

    . Giramondo Publishing Company, Sydney, distributed by Tower Books.
  • (2009) Barley Patch. Giramondo Publishing Company, Sydney. Dalkey Archive Press
    Dalkey Archive Press
    Dalkey Archive Press is a publisher of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism in Illinois in the United States, specializing in the publication or republication of lesser known, often avant-garde works...

    , 2011.

External links

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