Reading across borders: Michelle de Kretser
Michelle de Kretser, winner of the Miles Franklin Award in 2013, will read from her new novella, Springtime, and will talk about her writing with Dr Julieanne Lamond, an expert in Australian literature.
Springtime: A Ghost Story, has been described by James Bradley as a ‘thrilling sublimation of Henry James’s supernatural fiction’ and as an ‘exquisitely modern’ novella. Frances moves to Sydney with her new lover, Charlie, and her rescue dog, Rod. There, she is haunted by a sense that the world is not as it should be. The novel focuses on a similar cosmopolitan world to Questions of Travel, for which de Kretser won the Miles Franklin award.
Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer. She is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which won a swag of awards, including: the 2008 NSW Premier's Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal. Questions of Travel was the winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Award, the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Western Australian Premier's Prize and Award for Fiction (from the Allen and Unwin website).
The Reading Across Borders series, convened by the English Program in the ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, brings writers of renown and experts in the study of literature to ANU. Popular authors and famously difficult books will be examined in an intimate and informative forum. Experts in the study of literature and culture and prominent Australian and international authors will address questions such as: What makes particular novels significant to generations of readers? The ‘Reading Across Borders’ series will bring discussion of important works of literature from around the world to interested readers from ANU and beyond.
Books will be available for purchase in the foyer from the Co-op bookshop.