Questions of Travel - Softcover

Kretser, Michelle De

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1743311788 ISBN 13: 9781743311783

Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 2013

Synopsis

A novel of dazzling virtuosity and luminous intelligence that explores our urge to leave home, by a writer previously longlisted for both the Man Booker and Orange prizes whose prose can only be described as 'rich, luxuriant, intense, and gorgeous.' (Anita Desai). When Laura inherits money from the aunt who raised her, she sets off to see the world - alone, 'because two makes one a tourist.' When Ravi's family are devastated by a politically motivated atrocity, he seeks asylum in Sydney. The two meet there at a travel-guide publishing firm. She is a staff writer, living with an elderly Italian lover, and he is a website designer who wants only to make a living and forget about his past. Where do these disparate characters truly belong? With her trademark subtlety, Michelle de Kretser shows us that, in the twenty-first century, they belong wherever they're able to be, home or away. She has written a masterful novel for our time replete with dazzling beauty, uncanny common sense, sharp wit, and a deep knowledge of what makes us tick. It is for readers of Zadie Smith's "On Beauty", Jhumpa Lahiri and Sarah Waters.

About this title

Review

This is a novel unlike any other I have read... It is not really possible to describe, in a short space, the originality and depth of this long and beautifully crafted book. Author: A.S. Byatt Source: The Guardian

Ambitious and entertaining... Questions of Travel should ensure her place as a serious international novelist of the first rank. Source: The Economist

Sweeping and virtuosic... An outstanding novel. Author: Stephanie Cross Source: Daily Mail

Novel by novel, the Sri Lankan-born Australian has emerged as one of the most fiercely intelligent voices in fiction today. This new work, her most ambitious yet, makes globalisation and its discontents the focus of a multi-faceted story that unites grandeur and intimacy. Author: Boyd Tonkin Source: The Independent

Man Booker-longlisted de Kretser's precisely written novel is concerned with tourists, refugees and the complexities of immigration... a nuanced and ambivalent look at the crassness of tourism. Source: The Sunday Times

This truly is a book for our times. Source: Irish Times

Witty, absorbing and florid with ideas... a long, eventful journey, but the destination is worth it. Source: Scotland on Sunday

From the Author

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. She was educated in Melbourne and Paris. She is the author of three other novels: The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case (which won the Commonwealth Prize, SE Asia and Pacific region and the Encore Prize), and The Lost Dog, which was longlisted for both the Man Booker and the Orange Prize and received Australia's 'Book of the Year' Award, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the Gold Medal from the Australian Literary Society. She lives in Sydney.

About this edition

• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1743311788
• ISBN 13: 9781743311783
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528