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Fritz Agency
Christian Dittus
Original language
English

THE PLAINS

Gerald Murnane

There is no book in Australian literature like THE PLAINS. In the two decades since its first publication, this haunting novel has earned its status as a classic. A nameless young man arrives on the plains and begins to document the strange and rich culture of the plains families. As his story unfolds, the novel becomes, in the words of Murray Bail, "a mirage of landscape, memory, love and literature itself".

In 1957 Gerald Murnane began training for the Catholic priesthood but soon abandoned this in favour of becoming a primary-school teacher. In 1969 he graduated in arts from Melbourne University. He worked in education for a number of years and later became a teacher of creative writing. His first novel, Tamarisk Row, was published in 1974, and was followed by eight other works of fiction. He has also published a collection of essays, Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs (2005). In 1999 Gerald Murnane won the Patrick White Award. In 2009 he won the Melbourne Prize for Literature.

DIE EBENEN
Deutsch von Rainer G. Schmidt
[HC Suhrkamp 05/17]
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Published 1982-05-11 by Text Publishing

Comments

A piece of imaginative writing so remarkably sustained that it is a subject for meditation rather than mere reading...The only writer with whom I can think of comparing him is Borges... - Barry Oakley

THE PLAINS is parable, fable, allegory, analogue, mythology and vision. It is also subtly satirical and often ingeniously funny... - The writing is extraordinarily good, spare, austere, strong, often oddly moving.

Murnane is quite simply one of the finest writes we have produced. He is a master stylist...a strenuosly original writer with a unique vision and a flawless style. - Peter Craven

Catalan: Miniscula; French: Editions P.O.L.; Hungarian: Libri Kaido; Spanish: Miniscula; Swedeish: Albert Bonniers Forlag;