Richard Flanagan
Encyclopedia
Richard Flanagan is a novelist from Tasmania
, Australia
.
in the 1840s. His father is a survivor of the Burma Death Railway
. One of his three brothers is Australian Rules football journalist Martin Flanagan. He grew up in the remote mining town of Rosebery
on Tasmania's western coast.
Flanagan left school at the age of 16. He returned to study at the University of Tasmania
, where he was president of the Student Union. He achieved a first class honours degree in 1982. In the following year was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship
. At Worcester College, Oxford
, he was admitted to the degree of Master of Letters
in History
.
Flanagan wrote four non-fiction works before moving to fiction, works he has called 'his apprenticeship'.
In the foreword to Flanagan's first book, A Terrible Beauty - History of the Gordon River Country (1985), Bob Brown
wrote,
, a convict artist, and tells the tale of his love affair with a young black woman in 1828. It went on to win the 2002 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Flanagan has described these early novels as 'soul histories'. Flanagan’s fourth novel was The Unknown Terrorist (2006), which "The New York Times" called ‘stunning . . . a brilliant meditation upon the post-9/11 world’. His fifth novel, Wanting (2008) tells two parallel stories: about the novelist Charles Dickens
in England, and Mathinna, an Aboriginal orphan adopted by Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of the colonial Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land
(Tasmania
). As well as being a New Yorker Book of the Year and Observer Book of the Year, it won the Queensland Premier's Prize, the Western Australian Premier's Prize and the Tasmania Book Prize.
His most recent book is a collection of non-fiction, 'And What Do You Do, Mr Gable? (2011).
Flanagan has written on literature, the environment and politics for the Australian and international press. Some have proved controversial. "The Selling-out of Tasmania", published after the death of former Premier Jim Bacon
in 2004, was critical of the Bacon government's relationship with corporate interests in the state. Premier Paul Lennon declared, "Richard Flanagan and his fictions are not welcome in the new Tasmania."
Flanagan's 2007 essay, 'Gunns. Out of Control' in The Monthly
, first published as 'Paradise Razed' in the Daily Telegraph, is credited as catalysing Sydney businessman Geoffrey Cousins' high profile campaign against the Gunns' two billion dollar Bell Bay Pulp Mill
.
He has worked with Baz Luhrmann as a writer on the 2008 film Australia. A painting of Richard Flanagan by artist Geoffrey Dyer
won the 2003 Archibald Prize
. Also a rapid on the Franklin River, Flanagan's Surprise, is named after him.
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Early life
Flanagan was born in Longford, Tasmania, in 1961, the fifth of six children. He is descended from Irish convicts transported to Van Diemen's LandVan Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
in the 1840s. His father is a survivor of the Burma Death Railway
Death Railway
The Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, the Thailand–Burma Railway and similar names, was a railway between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma , built by the Empire of Japan during World War II, to support its forces in the Burma campaign.Forced labour was used in its construction...
. One of his three brothers is Australian Rules football journalist Martin Flanagan. He grew up in the remote mining town of Rosebery
Rosebery, Tasmania
Rosebery is a town on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia. It is situated at the northern end of the West Coast Range, in the shadow of Mount Black and adjacent to the Pieman River now Lake Pieman....
on Tasmania's western coast.
Flanagan left school at the age of 16. He returned to study at the University of Tasmania
University of Tasmania
The University of Tasmania is a medium-sized public Australian university based in Tasmania, Australia. Officially founded on 1 January 1890, it was the fourth university to be established in nineteenth-century Australia...
, where he was president of the Student Union. He achieved a first class honours degree in 1982. In the following year was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...
. At Worcester College, Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, he was admitted to the degree of Master of Letters
Master of Letters
The Master of Letters is a postgraduate degree.- United Kingdom :The MLitt is a postgraduate degree awarded by a select few British and Irish universities, predominantly within the ancient English and Scottish universities.- England :Within the English University system MLitts are not universally...
in History
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
.
Flanagan wrote four non-fiction works before moving to fiction, works he has called 'his apprenticeship'.
In the foreword to Flanagan's first book, A Terrible Beauty - History of the Gordon River Country (1985), Bob Brown
Bob Brown
Robert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...
wrote,
Australia has not heard the last of the Tasmanian wilderness nor, I happily predict, has it heard the last of Richard Flanagan.
Novels
His first novel, Death of a River Guide (1997), is the tale of Aljaz Cosini, river guide, who lies drowning, reliving his life and the lives of his family and forebears. It was described by "The Times Literary Supplement" as ‘one of the most auspicious debuts in Australian writing’. His next book, The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1998), which tells the story of Slovenian immigrants, was a major bestseller, selling more than 150,000 copies in Australia alone. Flanagan’s first two novels, declared Kirkus Reviews, ‘rank with the finest fiction out of Australia since the heyday of Patrick White’. Gould's Book of Fish (2001), Flanagan’s third novel, is based on the life of William Buelow GouldWilliam Buelow Gould
William Buelow Gould was an English and Van Diemonian painter. He was transported to Australia as a convict in 1827, after which he would become one of the most important early artists in the colony, despite never really separating himself from his life of crime.Gould's life in Van Diemen's Land...
, a convict artist, and tells the tale of his love affair with a young black woman in 1828. It went on to win the 2002 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Flanagan has described these early novels as 'soul histories'. Flanagan’s fourth novel was The Unknown Terrorist (2006), which "The New York Times" called ‘stunning . . . a brilliant meditation upon the post-9/11 world’. His fifth novel, Wanting (2008) tells two parallel stories: about the novelist Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
in England, and Mathinna, an Aboriginal orphan adopted by Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of the colonial Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
(Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
). As well as being a New Yorker Book of the Year and Observer Book of the Year, it won the Queensland Premier's Prize, the Western Australian Premier's Prize and the Tasmania Book Prize.
His most recent book is a collection of non-fiction, 'And What Do You Do, Mr Gable? (2011).
Other
The 1998 film of The Sound of One Hand Clapping, written and directed by Flanagan, was nominated for best film at that year's Berlin Film Festival.Flanagan has written on literature, the environment and politics for the Australian and international press. Some have proved controversial. "The Selling-out of Tasmania", published after the death of former Premier Jim Bacon
Jim Bacon
James Alexander Bacon, AC was Premier of Tasmania from 1998 to 2004.-Early life:Bacon was born in Melbourne; his father Frank, a doctor, died when Jim was twelve, leaving him to be raised by his mother Joan. He was educated at Scotch College and later at Monash University, but he did not graduate....
in 2004, was critical of the Bacon government's relationship with corporate interests in the state. Premier Paul Lennon declared, "Richard Flanagan and his fictions are not welcome in the new Tasmania."
Flanagan's 2007 essay, 'Gunns. Out of Control' in The Monthly
The Monthly
The Monthly is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz...
, first published as 'Paradise Razed' in the Daily Telegraph, is credited as catalysing Sydney businessman Geoffrey Cousins' high profile campaign against the Gunns' two billion dollar Bell Bay Pulp Mill
Bell Bay Pulp Mill
The Bell Bay Pulp Mill, also known as the Tamar Valley Pulp Mill or Gunns Pulp Mill, is a proposed $2.3 billion pulp mill which Gunns Limited is planning to build in the Tamar Valley, near Launceston, Tasmania.-Proposed mill:...
.
He has worked with Baz Luhrmann as a writer on the 2008 film Australia. A painting of Richard Flanagan by artist Geoffrey Dyer
Geoffrey Dyer
Geoffrey Dyer , Australian artist who won the Archibald Prize in 2003 with a portrait of Richard Flanagan.The painting of Richard Flanagan has an orange background with a figure with arms on his hips and almost silhouetted in dark colours of browns and blacks.He was a finalist for the 2011...
won the 2003 Archibald Prize
Archibald Prize
The Archibald Prize is regarded as the most important portraiture prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor of The Bulletin who died in 1919...
. Also a rapid on the Franklin River, Flanagan's Surprise, is named after him.
Non-fiction
- (1985) A terrible beauty: history of the Gordon River country
- (1990) The Rest of the world is watching - Tasmania and the Greens
- (1991) Codename Iago: the story of John Friedrich
- (1991) Parish-Fed Bastards. A History of the Politics of the Unemployed in Britain, 1884-1939
- (2011) And What Do You Do, Mr Gable?
Films
- (1998) The Sound of One hand Clapping (Director and scriptwriter)
- (2008) Australia (Co-writer)
Novels
- Death of a River GuideDeath of a River GuideDeath of a River Guide is a 1994 novel by Australian author Richard Flanagan. Death of a River Guide was Flanagan's first novel.-Awards:*Festival Awards for Literature , National Fiction Award, 1996: winner...
(1994) - The Sound of One Hand ClappingThe Sound of One Hand ClappingThe Sound of One Hand Clapping is a 1997 novel by Australian author Richard Flanagan. The title is adapted from the famous Zen kōan of Hakuin Ekaku. The Sound of One Hand Clapping was Flanagan's second novel.-Plot summary:...
(1997) - Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve FishGould's Book of FishGould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish is a 2001 novel by Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan. Gould's Book of Fish was Flanagan's third novel.-Plot summary:...
(2001) - The Unknown TerroristThe Unknown TerroristThe Unknown Terrorist is the 2006 fourth novel by the Australian novelist Richard Flanagan.It was described by the New York Times' Michiko Kakatani as "an armature for a brilliant meditation upon the post-9/11 world".-External links:*...
(2006) - WantingWanting (novel)-Plot summary:Wanting cuts between two stories based on real historical figures under the central theme of 'wanting', and is set in both nineteenth century Tasmania and Britain...
(2008)
External links
- http://www.ca-cranston.com/Flanagan%20.pdf Representation of Region and Nation in Literary Culture Studies Conference, University of Madras, 2009. Transcript of Plenary session 'The (Hydro)power Relations within Nation and Region, and the (de)formation of Identity in the case of Richard Flanagan' by Dr. CA. Cranston. Discusses the relationship of Flanagan's novels, films, to Island politics.
- ABC.net.au Transcript of interview with Ramona KovalRamona KovalRamona Koval is an Australian broadcaster, writer and journalist.Her parents were Yiddish-speaking survivors of the Holocaust who arrived in Melbourne from Poland in 1950....
on The Book ShowThe Book ShowThe Book Show is an Australian ABC radio program for the discussion of everything relating to the written word. It is broadcast live around Australia on Radio National with a daily weekday morning show which is then replayed nightly and also has a Sunday evening show. The show is hosted by Ramona...
, ABC Radio National from Byron Bay Writers Festival, July 2007 - ABC.net.au
- Articles and videos at The MonthlyThe MonthlyThe Monthly is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz...