 First edition | |
| Author | Alex Miller |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Penguin, Australia |
Publication date | 1992 |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 302 pp |
| ISBN | 0-14-015987-8 |
| OCLC | 27488276 |
| Preceded by | The Tivington Nott |
| Followed by | The Sitters |
The Ancestor Game is a 1992 Miles Franklin literary award-winning novel by the Australian author Alex Miller. [1]
Writer Steven Muir, August Spiess and his daughter Gertrude, work together to understand the puzzle of Lang Tzu, an exiled Chinese artist from a wealthy family. The novel explores the themes of cultural displacement, the role of the migrant in modern Australia and race relations.
In "The Australian Book Review" Sophie Masson stated: "Alex Miller’s third novel treads some complex and difficult territory, staking out the past, memory, and the creation of self. It is also an incursion into the shadowy borderlands that lie between history and fiction, and the way in which, for every individual, the past has a different face. It is a very modern novel, in its rejection of the linear certitudes of an earlier age, and a very Australian one, too, in its ambivalence towards ancestry and individuality. In a most immediate way, ‘Australia’ is a created thing, a fiction shaped by nineteenth-century notions of the individual, in conflict with the more elemental notions of ancestry." [2]
Peter Davis, in "The Canberra Times" noted: "The Ancestor Game is like a game of three-dimensional chess played on a series of layered mirrors. Miller's extraordinary attention to detail allows us to not just see his characters but to imagine them in the past, present and future. We traverse the fear and chaos of the Victorian goldfields where transience, solitude and a desperate clinging to notions of what Australia could be help shape the destiny of Lang Tsu. We observe a frenetic hope in Shanghai and the embracing of the new world. And we peep through the half-closed shutters that cast shadows on the mystic traditions of ancient China." [3]
After the novel's initial publication by Penguin in Australia in 1992 it was republished as follows:
It was also translated into Chinese in 1995, and Bulgarian in 2012. [8]
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.
Alexander McPhee Miller is an Australian novelist. Miller is twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award, in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country. He won the overall award for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for The Ancestor Game in 1993. He is twice winner of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Conditions of Faith in 2001 and for Lovesong in 2011. In recognition of his impressive body of work and in particular for his novel Autumn Laing he was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Literature in 2012.
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The National Book Council Banjo Awards were presented by the National Book Council of Australia from 1974 to 1997 for works of fiction and non-fiction.
The Barbara Ramsden Award was administered by Fellowship of Australian Writers and awarded annually to an author and editor in recognition of the efforts of both parties to produce a quality fiction or non-fiction book. The winners receive a memorial plaque. It was established in 1971 and was awarded annually until 1992. It was reestablished in 2006 with sponsorship from Society of Editors (Victoria) Inc. The award was named after Australian editor Barbara Ramsden (1903–1971). It was cancelled in 2016.
This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1992.
This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1993.