 First edition | |
| Author | Michelle de Kretser |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary |
| Publisher | Allen and Unwin, Australia |
Publication date | 2012 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 517 pp |
| ISBN | 9781743311004 |
| Preceded by | The Lost Dog |
| Followed by | Springtime |
Questions of Travel is a 2012 novel by Australian author Michelle de Kretser. It won the 2013 Miles Franklin Award and the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction.
The novel concerns two main characters: Laura—an Australian woman who travels the world before returning to Sydney to work for a publisher of travel guides—and Ravi—an IT professional from Sri Lanka who flees his country after a major trauma. The novel "illuminates travel, work and modern dreams in this brilliant evocation of the way we live now." [1]
Owen Richardson, in his review of the novel in The Monthly described it as "...a big, ambitious novel of Sydney and the world, globalisation and divided identities. It is everywhere full of intelligence and a vivid sense of individual lives." [2]
The novel's title, Questions of Travel, is a homage to a poem of the same name by Elizabeth Bishop. [3]
The novel carried the following dedication:
It also contained the following epigraphs:
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Timothy John Winton is an Australian writer. He has written novels, children's books, non-fiction books, and short stories. In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia, and has won the Miles Franklin Award four times.
Frank Thomas Moorhouse was an Australian writer who won major national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay and for script writing. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, France and the United States, and translated into German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Serbian and Swedish.
Charlotte Wood is an Australian novelist. The Australian newspaper described Wood as "one of our [Australia's] most original and provocative writers".
Brenda Walker is an Australian writer. She studied at the University of New England in Armidale and, after gaining a PhD in English at the Australian National University, she moved to Perth in 1984. She is now a Winthrop Professor of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia. She has been a visiting fellow at Stanford University and The University of Virginia.
Gail Jones is an Australian novelist and academic.
Marion Mildred Halligan AM was an Australian writer. She was born and educated in Newcastle, New South Wales, and worked as a school teacher and journalist before publishing her first short stories. Halligan has served as chairperson of the Literature Board of the Australia Council and the Australian National Word Festival. In her later years, she lived in Canberra.
Joan Elizabeth London is an Australian author of short stories, screenplays and novels.
Tara June Winch is an Australian writer. She is the 2020 winner of the Miles Franklin Award for her book The Yield.
Michelle de Kretser is an Australian novelist who was born in Sri Lanka, and moved to Australia in 1972 when she was 14.
Deborah Robertson (1959) is an Australian writer. She was born in Bridgetown, Western Australia, and lives in Melbourne.
Careless is a 2006 novel by Australian author Deborah Robertson.
The Lost Dog is a 2007 novel by Australian writer Michelle de Kretser.
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