{"title":"Gerald Murnane","description":"\u003cp\u003eGerald Murnane’s works invite readers into landscapes shaped by memory, imagination, and a deep meditation on reading and writing. His fiction and poetry often blur the boundaries between reality and perception, exploring the intricate connections between place and identity with a quietly profound style.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom reflective novels to collected short stories and lyrical verse, Murnane’s writing is a unique blend of literary artistry and philosophical inquiry. These books offer a contemplative experience, perfect for those drawn to richly textured narratives and the subtle interplay of ideas and emotions.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"something-for-the-pain-by-gerald-murnane-9781925355437","title":"Something for the Pain","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs a boy, Gerald Murnane became obsessed with horse racing. He had never ridden a horse, nor seen a race. Yet he was fascinated by photos of horse races in the \u003cem\u003eSporting Globe\u003c\/em\u003e, and by the incantation of horses' names in radio broadcasts of races. Murnane discovered in these races more than he could find in religion or philosophy—they were the gateway to a world of imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGerald Murnane is like no other writer, and \u003cem\u003eSomething for the Pain\u003c\/em\u003e is like no other Murnane book. In this unique and spellbinding memoir, he tells the story of his life through the lens of horse racing. It is candid, droll, and moving—a treat for lovers of literature and of the turf.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46378961633516,"sku":"9781925355437","price":25.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/13879703482873.jpg?v=1744836787"},{"product_id":"the-plains-by-gerald-murnane-9781921922275","title":"The Plains","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Twenty years ago, when I first arrived on the plains, I kept my eyes open. I looked for anything in the landscape that seemed to hint at some elaborate meaning behind appearances.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThere is no book in Australian literature like \u003cem\u003eThe Plains\u003c\/em\u003e. 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs his story unfolds, the novel becomes, in the words of Murray Bail, \"a mirage of landscape, memory, love and literature itself\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46533573705964,"sku":"9781921922275","price":17.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/7633873482872.jpg?v=1749390416"},{"product_id":"a-lifetime-on-clouds-by-gerald-murnane-9781922147455","title":"A Lifetime On Clouds","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAdrian Sherd is a teenage boy in Melbourne of the 1950s—the last years before television and the family car changed suburbia forever. Earnest and isolated, tormented by his hormones and his religious devotion, Adrian dreams of elaborate orgies with American film stars, and of marrying his sweetheart and fathering 11 children by her. He even dreams a history of the world as a chronicle of sexual frustration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Lifetime on Clouds\u003c\/em\u003e is funny, honest and sweetly told: a less ribald, Catholic Australian version of \u003cem\u003ePortnoy's Complaint\u003c\/em\u003e (Random House, 1969).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46608727081196,"sku":"9781922147455","price":17.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9885673482872.jpg?v=1751522022"},{"product_id":"a-season-on-earth-by-gerald-murnane-9781925773347","title":"A Season on Earth","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWhat he had been searching for was not the perfect religious order but the perfect landscape… From that moment on he was a poet in search of his ideal landscape.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLost to the world for more than four decades, \u003cem\u003eA Season on Earth\u003c\/em\u003e is the essential link between two acknowledged masterpieces by Gerald Murnane: the lyrical account of boyhood in his debut novel, \u003cem\u003eTamarisk Row\u003c\/em\u003e, and the revolutionary prose of \u003cem\u003eThe Plains\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Season on Earth\u003c\/em\u003e is Murnane’s second novel as it was intended to be, bringing together all of its four sections—the first two of which were published as \u003cem\u003eA Lifetime on Clouds\u003c\/em\u003e in 1976 and the last two of which have never been in print.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA hilarious tale of a lustful teenager in 1950s Melbourne, \u003cem\u003eA Lifetime on Clouds\u003c\/em\u003e has been considered an outlier in Murnane’s fiction. That is because, as Murnane writes in his foreword, it is ‘only half a book and Adrian Sherd only half a character’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere, at last, is sixteen-year-old Adrian’s journey in full, from fantasies about orgies with American film stars and idealised visions of suburban marital bliss to his struggles as a Catholic novice, and finally a burgeoning sense of the boundless imaginative possibilities to be found in literature and landscapes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAdrian Sherd is one of the great comic creations in Australian writing, and \u003cem\u003eA Season on Earth\u003c\/em\u003e is a revelatory portrait of the artist as a young man.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46670136377580,"sku":"9781925773347","price":44.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/18058803482873.jpg?v=1752760802"},{"product_id":"a-history-of-books-by-gerald-murnane-9781920882853","title":"A History of Books","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe major work of fiction in this collection, \u003cem\u003eA History of Books\u003c\/em\u003e, explores the relationship between reading and writing in twenty-nine sections, each of which begins with the memory of a book that has left an image in the writer's mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe memory of the books themselves might have faded, but the images remain in their clarity and import - scenes of discord and madness, a stern-faced man, a young woman on a swing, a glass of beer and rays of sunlight, mountain and woodland and horizon. These images together embody the anxieties and aspirations of a writing life, and its indebtedness to what has been written and read.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA History of Books\u003c\/em\u003e is accompanied by three shorter works, \"As It Were a Letter,\" \"The Boy's Name was David,\" and \"Last Letter to a Niece,\" in which a writer searches for an ideal world, an ideal sentence, and an ideal reader.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46710405595372,"sku":"9781920882853","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/25325443482871.jpg?v=1754140681"},{"product_id":"a-million-windows-by-gerald-murnane-9781922146533","title":"A Million Windows","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis new work of fiction by one of Australia's most highly regarded authors focuses on the importance of trust, and the possibility of betrayal, in storytelling as in life. It tests the relationship established between author and reader, and on occasions of intimacy, between child and parent, boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMurnane's fiction is woven from images, and the feelings associated with them, and the images that flit through \u003ci\u003eA Million Windows\u003c\/i\u003e like butterflies – the reflections of the setting sun like spots of golden oil, the houses of two or perhaps three storeys, the procession of dark-haired females, the clearing in the forest, the colours indigo and silver-grey, the death of a young woman who had leaped into a well – build to an emotional crescendo that is all the more powerful for the intricacy of their patterning.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46710451175660,"sku":"9781922146533","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9876453482872.jpg?v=1754147727"},{"product_id":"barley-patch-by-gerald-murnane-9781920882532","title":"Barley Patch","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOften mentioned as an author in contention for the Nobel Prize, Gerald Murnane is regarded by many as Australia's most innovative and important writer of fiction. \u003cem\u003eBarley Patch\u003c\/em\u003e, Murnane's first new work of fiction in fourteen years, was written after a period in which he had thought he would never write fiction again. Appropriately, the book begins with the question, \u003cem\u003eMust I write?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat follows is a remarkable account of the images that have appeared in the author's mind during a career of over thirty years as a reader and writer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46710930931948,"sku":"9781920882532","price":37.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/25322233482871.jpg?v=1754168670"},{"product_id":"border-districts-by-gerald-murnane-9781925336542","title":"Border Districts","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the 2018 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA new work by a master of contemporary Australian fiction, highly regarded overseas but little-known here. Giramondo's publication of \u003ci\u003eBorder Districts\u003c\/i\u003e, and the retrospective volume \u003ci\u003eCollected Short Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e (early next year) is a collaboration with the distinguished New York publisher Farrar Straus Giroux.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eConceived as Gerald Murnane's last work of fiction, \u003ci\u003eBorder Districts\u003c\/i\u003e was written after the author moved from Melbourne to a small town on the western edge of the Wimmera plains, near the border with South Australia. The narrator of this fiction has made a similar move, from a capital city to a remote town in the border country, where he intends to spend the last years of his life. It is a time for exploring the enduring elements of his experience, as these exist in his mind, images whose persistence is assured, but whose significance needs to be rediscovered. Readers of Murnane's earlier work will recognise some of these images: the dark-haired young woman at a window; the ancestral house set in grasslands; coloured glass, marbles, goldfish, the outfits of jockeys. Murnane's images often draw their power from the light that falls upon them from a distant or mysterious source. But he also considers the possibility that the mind casts its own light, imbuing the images in the observer's mind with the colours of his soul.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs Murnane's narrator declares, \"the mind is a place best viewed from borderlands\". In this work, \u003ci\u003eBorder Districts\u003c\/i\u003e also refers to the border country between life and death; and there is another meaning, in the narrator's discovery of others who might share his world, even though they enter it from a different direction, across the border districts which separate or unite two human beings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGerald Murnane\u003c\/strong\u003e is the author of eleven books of fiction, including \u003ci\u003eTamarisk Row\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eInland\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBarley Patch\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA History of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eA Million Windows\u003c\/i\u003e, and a collection of essays, \u003ci\u003eInvisible Yet Enduring Lilacs\u003c\/i\u003e, which have been published by Giramondo. He is a recipient of the Patrick White Literary Award, the Melbourne Prize for Literature, the Adelaide Festival Literature Award for Innovation, and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'A genius on the level of Beckett' - Teju Cole\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'The emotional conviction...is so intense, the sombre lyricism so moving, the intelligence behind the chiselled sentences so undeniable, that we suspend all disbelief.' - J.M. Coetzee\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46711018946796,"sku":"9781925336542","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/f7a3360c061b5097e295f82f975dc871.jpg?v=1759168961"},{"product_id":"gerald-murnane-collected-short-fiction-by-gerald-murnane-9781925336641","title":"Gerald Murnane: Collected Short Fiction","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDefinitive collection of the short fiction of an Australian master-storyteller who is in a league of his own.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReleased simultaneously with Farrar Straus Giroux's editions of \u003ci\u003eBorder Districts\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eCollected Short Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e in New York, an event which is likely to get international media attention.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis volume brings together Gerald Murnane's shorter works of fiction, most of which have been out of print for the past twenty-five years. They include such masterpieces as 'When the Mice Failed to Arrive', 'Stream System', 'First Love', 'Emerald Blue', and 'The Interior of Gaaldine', a story which holds the key to the long break in Murnane's career, and points the way towards his later works, from \u003ci\u003eBarley Patch\u003c\/i\u003e to \u003ci\u003eBorder Districts\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMuch is made of Murnane's distinctive and elaborate style as a writer, but there is no one to match him in his sensitive portraits of family members—parents, uncles and aunts, and particularly children—and in his probing of situations which contain anxiety and embarrassment, shame or delight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGerald Murnane is the author of eleven books of fiction, including \u003ci\u003eTamarisk Row\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eInland\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBarley Patch\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA History of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA Million Windows\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBorder Districts\u003c\/i\u003e, and a collection of essays, \u003ci\u003eInvisible Yet Enduring Lilacs\u003c\/i\u003e, which have been published by Giramondo. He is a recipient of the Patrick White Literary Award, the Melbourne Prize for Literature, the Adelaide Festival Literature Award for Innovation and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRead \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e profile of Gerald Murnane here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'He is without question both the most original and most significant Australian author of the last 50 years, and one of the best writers Australia has produced. This claim will be hotly contested by many—and perhaps most—Australian critics and readers, but I suspect it will become a commonplace sentiment internationally.' - Emmett Stinson, \u003ci\u003ethe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46711629938924,"sku":"9781925336641","price":39.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/13691743482873.jpg?v=1754234947"},{"product_id":"inland-by-gerald-murnane-9781922146281","title":"Inland","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith Giramondo's publication of \u003cem\u003eBarley Patch\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eA History of Books\u003c\/em\u003e, Gerald Murnane has attracted renewed interest as a brilliant writer and Nobel Prize contender. First published 25 years ago, \u003cem\u003eInland\u003c\/em\u003e is one of Murnane's most complex and rewarding works, a study of guilt, longing and regret rich in metaphysical insights.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom his native district in the Melbourne suburb of Pascoe Vale, Murnane's narrator imagines another world, in Szolnok county Hungary, and within that world another, in Ideal South Dakota, each haunted by the betrayal of a young girl, each driven by the possibility of restitution.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMurnane's mastery over language and his pressing towards the edges of what fiction can accomplish make this book a landmark in Australian literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46711959552236,"sku":"9781922146281","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9873933482872.jpg?v=1754263314"},{"product_id":"landscape-with-landscape-by-gerald-murnane-9781925336115","title":"Landscape with Landscape","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLandscape with Landscape\u003c\/em\u003e is Gerald Murnane's fourth book, after \u003cem\u003eThe Plains\u003c\/em\u003e, and his first collection of short fiction. When it was first published, thirty years ago, it was cruelly reviewed. 'I feel sorry for my fourth-eldest, which of all my book-children was the most brutally treated in its early years,' Murnane writes in his foreword to this new edition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn hindsight, it can be seen to contain some of his best writing, and to offer a wide-ranging exploration of the different landscapes which make up the imagination of this extraordinary Australian writer. Five of the six loosely connected stories also trace a journey through the suburbs of Melbourne in the 1960s, as the writer negotiates the conflicting demands of Catholicism and sex, self-consciousness and intimacy, alcohol and literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe sixth story, 'The Battle of Acosta Nu', is remarkable for its depth of emotion, as it imagines a Paraguayan man imagining a country called Australia, while his son sickens and dies before his eyes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46712140529900,"sku":"9781925336115","price":37.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/13686483482873.jpg?v=1754278453"},{"product_id":"tamarisk-row-by-gerald-murnane-9781920882396","title":"Tamarisk Row","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBased on Murnane's own early years growing up in the Victorian country town of Bendigo, \u003cem\u003eTamarisk Row\u003c\/em\u003e is an unsparing evocation of an impoverished Catholic childhood in the late 1940s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOriginally published in 1974, and out of print for almost twenty years, \u003cem\u003eTamarisk Row\u003c\/em\u003e is Murnane's first novel, and in many respects, his masterpiece. Not only because of its rich social tapestry and its evocation of the Australian landscape, but because it does magical things with language. Its long, sinuous sentences capture the movements of consciousness with a suppleness unmatched in our writing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor this reason, the novel remains as fresh and vital when read today as when it first appeared.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46715240612076,"sku":"9781920882396","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/25320873482871.jpg?v=1754391190"},{"product_id":"invisible-yet-enduring-lilacs-by-gerald-murnane-9781920882099","title":"Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs","description":"This collection of essays leads into the eccentric imagination of Gerald Murnane, one of the masters of contemporary Australian writing.","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078801572076,"sku":"9781920882099","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/25317903482871.jpg?v=1765222026"},{"product_id":"last-letter-to-a-reader-by-gerald-murnane-9781925818840","title":"Last Letter to a Reader","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFinal work by internationally acclaimed Australian author Gerald Murnane, reflecting on his career as a writer, and the fifteen books which have led critics to praise him as 'a genius on the level of Beckett'.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA book which will appeal equally to Murnane's legion of fans, and to those new to his work, attracted by his reputation as a truly original Australian writer.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the first days of spring in his eighty-second year, Gerald Murnane began a project which would round off his career as a writer. He would read all of his books in turn and prepare a report on each. His original intention was to lodge the reports in two of his legendary archives, the Chronological Archive, which documents his life as a whole, and the Literary Archive, which is devoted to everything he has written. But as the reports grew, they themselves took on the form of a book, \u003cem\u003eLast Letter to a Reader\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe essays on each of his works travel through the capacious territory Murnane refers to as his mind: they dwell on the circumstances which gave rise to the writing, images, associations, reflections on the theory of fiction, and memories of a deeply personal kind. The final essay is on \u003cem\u003eLast Letter to a Reader\u003c\/em\u003e itself: it considers the elation and exhilaration which accompany the act of writing, and offers a moving ending to what must surely be his last work as death approaches. 'Help me, dear one, to endure patiently my going back to my own sort of heaven.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'No living Australian writer, not even Les Murray, has higher claims to permanence or a richer sense of distinction' - \u003cem\u003eSydney Morning Herald\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'The emotional conviction...is so intense, the somber lyricism so moving, the intelligence behind the chiseled sentences so undeniable, that we suspend all disbelief.' - J.M. Coetzee\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47383888986348,"sku":"9781925818840","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/18513733482873.jpg?v=1773386414"},{"product_id":"green-shadows-and-other-poems-by-gerald-murnane-9781925336986","title":"Green Shadows and other poems","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGerald Murnane\u003c\/em\u003e turns to poetry at the end of his literary career, writing frank, disarming poems that traverse the rich span of his life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eI esteem \/ above all poems or passages of prose \/ those that put a lump in my throat. - Gerald Murnane, 'The Darkling Thrush'\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGerald Murnane, now in his eightieth year, began his writing career as a poet. After many years as a writer of fiction, he only returned to poetry a few years ago when he moved to Goroke, in the Western Districts of Victoria, after the death of his wife. The forty-five poems collected here are in a strikingly different mode to his fiction—without framing or digressions, and with very few images, they speak openly to the reader of the author's memories, beliefs and experiences. They are for this reason an important addition to his internationally recognised body of fiction, most recently \u003cem\u003eBorder Districts\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCollected Short Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e, published by Giramondo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe poems include tributes to his mother and father, and to his family, and to places that have played a formative role in his life, like Gippsland, Bendigo, Warrnambool, the Western Districts, and of course Goroke. Especially moving are his poems dedicated to authors who have influenced him—Lesbia Harford and Thomas Hardy, William Carlos Williams, Henry Handel Richardson, Marcel Proust, and with particular force, the eighteenth-century poet John Clare, who gives the collection its title, revered 'not only for his writings \/ but for his losing his reason when \/ he was forced from the district he had wanted as his for life.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for Gerald Murnane:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'A strong case could be made for Murnane...as the greatest living English-language writer most people have never heard of.' - \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'No living Australian writer, not even Les Murray, has higher claims to permanence or a richer sense of distinction.' - \u003cem\u003eSydney Morning Herald\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47424210731244,"sku":"9781925336986","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781925336986.jpg?v=1774768865"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/gerald-murnane.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}