On Shirley Hazzard
Writers on Writers
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- ¥500
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- ¥500
Publisher Description
Hazzard was the first Australian writer I read who looked outwards, away from Australia. Her work spoke of places from which I had come and places to which I longed to go … It was reading as an affair of revelations and gifts. It fell like rain, greening my vision of Australian literature as a stony country where I would never feel at home. Splendour had entered the scene.
In this vibrant, rich and personal essay on acclaimed author Shirley Hazzard, Michelle de Kretser offers a masterclass in writing that is powerful and exhilarating, that is ‘perfect’ because it is ‘exact’. She celebrates the precision and musicality of Hazzard’s prose and illuminates the humour, humanity and revelatory impact of her work. This jewel of a book is both a wonderful introduction to Hazzard and a treat for her long-time fans.
In the Writers on Writers series, leading authors reflect on an Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative and crisp, these books start a fresh conversation between past and present, shed new light on the craft of writing, and introduce some intriguing and talented authors and their work.
Published by Black Inc. in association with the University of Melbourne and State Library Victoria.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this compact, intriguing work, de Kretser (The Life to Come) offers a series of short appreciations of fellow Australian novelist Shirley Hazzard (1931 2016). Making no attempt to be exhaustive, de Kretser carefully chooses what interests her about Hazzard's work, covering such topics as the late author's "unwavering belief" in the transformational potential of art, her strong sense of place, and her politics Hazzard, de Kretser states, "reserves solidarity for the vulnerable," making the political personal. To convey a sense of who Hazzard was in her own words, de Kretser quotes heavily from her work, inviting the reader to linger over such vivid images as the "hard apple" of a cat's head rubbing against an arm. She also discusses characterization and "echo patterning" in Hazzard's work, particularly in The Transit of Venus and The Great Fire. These disparate subjects are unified by the deep attachment de Kretser feels to Hazzard's work, and the author herself. While this is unlikely to be accessible to those who aren't familiar with Hazzard's oeuvre, it stands as a deeply felt if idiosyncratic tribute.
