Richard Flanagan

Goodbye Old Cobber

His father’s experience as a war prisoner was a long shadow over the life of Richard Flanagan, and has affected him both as a novelist, and as a son. Flanagan is an Australian Hemingway with an impressive body of work and an iconic style that makes his novels life.

“I was born in Longford where my great-great grandfather settled in 1849. My family was rooted in that Northern Tasmanian peasantry, with its own rich folk culture” Flanagan said. The fifth of the sixth’s children, he spent his childhood in the mining town of Rosebery. He then left school at the age of 16 for a desire to be a carpenter, but it was the years between leaving school and wining Rhode’s Scholarship that profoundly shaped his thoughts.  Back from Oxford, he worked in various menial jobs, as a labourer, or as a river guide, by day and wrote at night. Flanagan first novel, --The Death of a River Guide, -- relives not just his own life but that of his family and forebears. The book was described by times literary supplement “one of the most auspicious debuts in Australian writings.”

His second novel, --The Sound of One Hand Clapping, -- was an exposition of the post-war migrant experience in his home State. Grown up among migrants, “I even married one,” he said in his interview with Murray Waldren. The novel was adapted for a film that was nominated for Golden Bear in Berlin film festival. 17 years after in 2014, Flanagan still lives with Majda, his Slovenian-born wife after 30 years of marriage.

In an interview with ABC radio Flanagan explained how close he was with his father, -- Archibald Henry (Arch), -- a Lance Corporal in the Australian army and a POW who worked as a slave labourer on the Thai-Burma Railway.  The day Richard finished his sixth Novel, --The Narrow Road to the Deep North, -- Arch died at the age of 98.  The Novel won in 2014 the Man Booker Prize; ‘a master piece’ as praised by Guardian, and a book Richard was born to write to honour his father. And yes, he did honour him and set him free. The story is a romance of war, hope and love, from the self-doubt and uncertainty of youth to the self-doubt and regrets of old age.

As a Journalist his pen was to defend the environment of his homestead. “Flanagan is thoughtful, far-visioned and compassionate intellect,” former Green leader Bob Brown said.

Flanagan had collaborated with Baz Luhrmann on the script of the movie 'Australia', to share his passion for the land and the people of his country.

Flanagan said “novels are life, or they are nothing.” And we have seen how close his novels are to his life, even if he said “Writing is journey to humility,” but on the same journey we can hear the sound of many hands clapping. Clapping for him.
Michael V