Richard Miller Flanagan (born 1961) is an Australian writer, who won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Flanagan was described by the Washington Post as "one of our greatest living novelists".
"Considered by many to be the finest Australian novelist of his generation", according to The Economist,
He has also worked as a film director and screenwriter.
Early life and education
Flanagan was born in Longford,
Tasmania, in 1961, the fifth of six children. He is descended from Irish convicts transported to Van Diemen's Land during the Great Famine in
Ireland.
Flanagan's father was a survivor of the Burma
Death Railway and one of his three brothers is Australian rules football journalist Martin Flanagan.
Flanagan was born with severe hearing impairment, which was corrected when he was six years old.[ ABC, Australian Story. Abc.net.au, Retrieved 29 December 2018] He grew up in the remote mining town of Rosebery on Tasmania's western coast.
Flanagan left school at the age of 16 but returned to study at the University of Tasmania, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with First-Class Honours. Flanagan was president of the Tasmania University Union in 1983.
Early works
Flanagan wrote four non-fiction works before moving to fiction, works that he called "his apprenticeship".
One of these was
Codename Iago, an autobiography of Australian con man John Friedrich, which Flanagan ghostwrote in six weeks to make money to write his first novel. Friedrich killed himself in the middle of the book's writing and it was published posthumously. Simon Caterson, writing in
The Australian, described it as "one of the least reliable but most fascinating memoirs in the annals of Australian publishing".
Novels
Flanagan's first novel,
Death of a River Guide (1994), is the tale of Aljaz Cosini, a 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".
(1997), tells the story of Slovenian immigrants and was a major bestseller, selling more than 150,000 copies in Australia. Flanagan's first two novels, declared
Kirkus Reviews, "rank with the finest fiction out of Australia since the heyday of
Patrick White".
[ Death of a River Guide, Kirkus Reviews, 1 March 2001]
Gould's Book of Fish (2001) is based on the life of William Buelow Gould, a convict artist, and tells the tale of his love affair with a young black woman in 1828. It won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Flanagan described these early novels as 'soul histories'. The Unknown Terrorist (2006), was described by The New York Times as "stunning ... a brilliant meditation upon the post-9/11 world".
First Person (2017),
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (2020) about a woman caring for her dying mother during Australia's Black Summer of climate change induced wildfires, was described in a review for The Sydney Morning Herald as "a revelation and a triumph . . . astonishing".
Robert Dixon's (ed.) Richard Flanagan: Critical Essays (2018) offers different perspectives on Flanagan's writing, while Joyce Carol Oates has written an overview of his novels for the New York Review of Books.
Non-fiction
Flanagan has written on literature, the environment, art and politics for the Australian and international press including
Le Monde,
The Daily Telegraph (London),
Suddeutsche Zeitung,
The Monthly,
The New York Times, and the
New Yorker.
Some of his writings 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 on logging company Gunns, then the biggest hardwood woodchipper in the world, "Gunns. Out of Control" in
The Monthly,
first published as "Paradise Razed" in
The Telegraph (London),
inspired Sydney businessman Geoffrey Cousins' high-profile campaign to stop the building of Gunns' two billion dollar Bell Bay Pulp Mill.
Cousins reprinted 50,000 copies of the essay for letterboxing in the electorates of Australia's environment minister and opposition environment spokesperson.
["Pulp mill fight moves into MPs' backyards – Environment". Sydney Morning Herald. 28 August 2007.]["Garrett hedges bets on mill – Environment". Sydney Morning Herald. 29 August 2007.] Gunns subsequently collapsed with huge debt,
its CEO John Gay found guilty of insider trading,
and the pulp mill was never built. Flanagan's essay won the 2008 John Curtin Prize for Journalism.
A collection of his non-fiction was published as And What Do You Do, Mr Gable? (2011).
In 2015 he published Notes on an Exodus, on the Syrian refugee crisis, arising out of visiting refugee camps in Lebanon, Greece, and meeting refugees in Serbia. The book also features sketches made by the noted Australian artist Ben Quilty, who travelled with Flanagan to meet the refugees.
His 2021 book Toxic. The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmanian Salmon Industry has been credited with lifting 'the veil on the Atlantic salmon industry's environmental and social malfeasances' and igniting popular opposition to the industry.
In 2024, his book Question 7, which had also been long listed for the Prix Medicis and shortlisted for the Prix Femina as a novel,
Film
The 1998 film of
The Sound of One Hand Clapping, written and directed by Flanagan, was nominated for the
Golden Bear at that year's Berlin Film Festival.
He worked with Baz Luhrmann as a writer on the 2008 film Australia.
A major television series of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, directed by Justin Kurzel ( Snowtown, Macbeth, The Order) and starring Jacob Elordi ( Euphoria, Priscilla, Saltburn)
Personal life
Flanagan is an ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation,
to which he donated his $40,000 prize money on winning the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Prize in 2014.
A painting of Richard Flanagan by artist
Geoffrey Dyer won the 2003
Archibald Prize.
A rapid on the
Franklin River, Flanagan's Surprise, is named after him.
[Peter Griffiths and Bruce Baxter,(2010) The Ever-Varying Flood. A History and Guide to the Franklin River. (2nd ed.) Preston, Vic. p.57] He was made an Honorary Citizen of Oxford, Mississippi, the home town of William Faulkner, in 2014.
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery mounted an exhibition in 2024 of five monumental sculptural pieces by Tasmanian artist, master furniture-maker and wood craftsman, Kevin Perkins, each piece inspired by one of Flanagan's novels.
Flanagan lives in Hobart, Tasmania with his Slovenian-born wife Majda (née Smolej) and has three daughters, Rosie, Jean and Eliza.
His life was the subject of a BAFTA award-winning BBC documentary, Life After Death.
Works
Novels
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Death of a River Guide (1994)
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The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997)
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(2001)
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The Unknown Terrorist (2006)
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Wanting (2008)
[ ABC.net.au Transcript of interview with Ramona Koval on The Book Show, ABC Radio National on his novel "Wanting", 12 November 2008][ Themonthly.com , Video: Interview with Richard Flanagan about Wanting and Baz Luhrmann's Australia][ Official Australian Wanting book website]
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The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013)
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First Person (2017)
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The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (2020)
Non-fiction
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(1985) A Terrible Beauty: History of the Gordon River Country
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(1990) The Rest of the World Is Watching: Tasmania and the Greens
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(1991) Codename Iago: The Story of John Friedrich
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(1991) "Parish-Fed Bastards": A History of the Politics of the Unemployed in Britain, 1884–1939
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(2011) And What Do You Do, Mr Gable?
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(2015) Notes on an Exodus
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(2018) Seize the Fire: Three Speeches
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(2021) Toxic: The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmania Salmon Industry
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(2023) Question 7
Films
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(1998) The Sound of One Hand Clapping (director and screenwriter)
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(2008) Australia (co-writer)
Awards and honours
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(1996) National Fiction Award for Death of a River Guide
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(1995) Victorian Premier's Prize for Best First Fiction (for Death of a River Guide)
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(1998) National Booksellers award for Best Book for The Sound of One Hand Clapping
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(1998) Victorian Premier's Prize for Best Novel, for The Sound of One hand Clapping
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(2002) Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (for Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish)
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(2002) Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction for Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish
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(2002) The Commonwealth Writers' Prize (for Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish)
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(2008) Western Australian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction (for Wanting)
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(2009) Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Fiction (for Wanting)
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(2011) Tasmania Book Prize (for Wanting)
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(2014) Western Australian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction (for The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
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(2014) Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Fiction (for The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
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(2014) Booker Prize for Fiction (for The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
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(2014) Australian Prime Minister's Literary Prize (for The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
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(2015) Margaret Scott Prize (for The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
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(2016) The Athens Prize for Literature (for The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
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(2016) Lire Prix du meilleur livre étranger (for The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
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(2019) Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA)
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(2020) Honorary Fellow of the Modern Languages Association
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(2024) Baillie Gifford Prize (for Question 7)
External links
