Gerald Murnane | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1939-02-25)25 February 1939 (age 86) Coburg, Victoria, Australia |
| Occupation | Author |
| Nationality | Australian |
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| Notable awards |
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Gerald Murnane (born 25 February 1939)[1] is an Australian novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist. Perhaps best known for his 1982 novelThe Plains,[2] he has won acclaim for his distinctive prose and exploration of memory, identity, and the Australian landscape, often blurring fiction and autobiography in the process.The New York Times described Murnane in 2018 as "the greatest living English-language writer most people have never heard of," and he is regularly tipped to win theNobel Prize in Literature.[3]
Murnane was born inCoburg, a suburb ofMelbourne in the Australian state ofVictoria.[1] He is one of four children. His brother had anintellectual disability, was repeatedly hospitalised and died in 1985.[3] Parts of his childhood were spent inBendigo and theWestern District. In 1956 he graduated fromDe La Salle College,Malvern.
Murnane briefly trained for theRoman Catholicpriesthood in 1957. He abandoned this path, however, instead becoming a teacher in primary schools (from 1960 to 1968), and at theVictoria Racing Club's Apprentice Jockeys' School. He received a Bachelor of Arts from theUniversity of Melbourne in 1969, then worked in the Victorian Education Department until 1973. From 1980 he began to teach creative writing at various tertiary institutions.
Murnane married in 1966 and has three sons.[4] In 1969 the family moved to the Melbourne suburb ofMacleod.
After the death of his wife in 2009, Murnane moved toGoroke in country Victoria.[5]: 192
Murnane's first two books,Tamarisk Row (1974) andA Lifetime on Clouds (1976), seem to be semi-autobiographical accounts of his childhood and adolescence. Both are composed largely of very long but grammatical sentences.
In 1982, he attained his mature style withThe Plains, a short novel about an unnamed filmmaker who travels to "inner Australia", where he endeavours to film the plains under the patronage of wealthy landowners.[6] The novel has been termed a fable, parable or allegory.[6][7] The novel is both a metaphysical parable about appearance and reality, and a parodic examination of traditions and cultural horizons. It has been suggested[8] that the book's opening features a narrator expressing an outlook that is typical to Murnane's writing:
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.
My journey to the plains was much less arduous than I afterwards described it. And I cannot even say that at a certain hour I knew I had left Australia. But I recall clearly a succession of days when the flat land around me seemed more and more a place that only I could interpret.[7]
The Plains was followed byLandscape With Landscape (1985),Inland (1988),Velvet Waters (1990), andEmerald Blue (1995). A book of essays,Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs, appeared in 2005. These books are all concerned with the relation between memory, image, and landscape, and frequently with the relation between fiction and non-fiction.
2009 saw the release of Murnane's first work of fiction in over a decade,Barley Patch, which was followed byA History of Books in 2012 andA Million Windows in 2014. Will Heyward, in a review ofA Million Windows forMusic & Literature, suggests that these three latter works may be seen as a single, continuous project, containing "a form of fiction defined by a fragmentary style that avoids plot and characterization, and is instead narrated by association and the fugue-like repetition and variation of images."[9]
In June 2018, his 2017 autobiographical novelBorder Districts was shortlisted for theMiles Franklin Award.[10]
Although Murnane is primarily known within Australia, he does have a following in other countries, especially the US, Sweden[11] and Germany. In July/August 2017,The Plains was the number 1 book recommendation of South West German Radio (SWR2). His works have been translated into Italian (Velvet Waters asUna Melodia), German (The Plains asDie Ebenen,Border Districts asGrenzbezirke,Landscape With Landscape asLandschaft mit Landschaft, all publ.Suhrkamp Verlag), Spanish (The Plains asLas llanuras, andSomething for the Pain asUna vida en las carreras, all published byEditorial Minúscula), Catalan (The Plains asLes planes, also published byEditorial Minúscula), and Swedish (Inland asInlandet,The Plains asSlätterna,Velvet Waters asSammetsvatten andBarley Patch asKorntäppa).[11][12]
Tamarisk Row andBorder Districts were published in the UK byAnd Other Stories in 2019.
Murnane was raised a Catholic and studied briefly for the priesthood.[5]: 206 He is an avid follower ofhorse racing, which often serves as a metaphor in his work. He is a passionate golfer.[5]: 194 A documentary,Words and Silk – The Real and Imaginary Worlds of Gerald Murnane (1989), directed by Philip Tyndall, examined Murnane's childhood, work, approach to the craft of writing, and interest in horse racing. He is an avid record-keeper and archivist.[5]: 193
He taught himselfHungarian after having readGyula Illyés'People of thePuszta.[13]
In June 2018 Murnane released a spoken word album,Words in Order.[14] The centrepiece is a 1600-word palindrome written by Murnane, which he recites over a minimalist musical score. He also performs works byThomas Hardy,Dezső Kosztolányi,DEVO andKilldozer.
