To the Islands (Paperback)

Randolph Stow

ISBN 10: 1925240290 / ISBN 13: 9781925240290

Published by Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2015

About this Item

Paperback. Behind the uneasy trees rose the hills, and beyond them again the country of the lost, huge wilderness between this last haunt of civilization and the unpeopled sea.Exhausted and losing faith, an Anglican minister flees his mission in Australias northwest for the vast emptiness of the outback. In the soul country of the desert the old man searches for the islands of the Aboriginal dead, reflecting on past transgressions and on his lifes work. A Lear-like tale of madness and destruction, published when Randolph Stow was only twenty-two, To the Islands is compelling and wisea poetic masterpiece. The haunting and beautiful tale of an aged missionary's final days. A psychic drama of pride, guilt, atonement and self-discovery. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781925240290

Bibliographic Details

• Title: To the Islands (Paperback)
• Publisher: Text Publishing, Melbourne
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1925240290
• ISBN 13: 9781925240290
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Exhausted and losing faith, an Anglican minister flees his mission in Australia's northwest for the vast emptiness of the outback. In the desert he reflects on past transgressions and on his life's work.
To the Islands, a Lear-like tale of madness and destruction, was published when its author was only twenty-two. A poetic masterpiece, it was awarded the 1958 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal.
The work of Randolph Stow is as original in the Australian literary tradition as William Faulkner in the American tradition. He has been hailed as "the least visible figure of that great twentieth-century triumvirate of Australian novelists whose other members are Patrick White and Christina Stead."
Text is re-releasing five of Stow's major works under the Text Classics imprint, with introductions by key figures in Australian literature.
Randolph Stow was born in 1935. While at university he sent his poems to a British publisher, and the resulting collection won the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal in 1957. He worked briefly as an anthropologist's assistant in New Guinea, returning to Australia after he fell seriously ill. In the 1960s he lectured at universities in Australia and England, and lived in America on a Harkness fellowship. Stow died in 2010.

Exhausted and losing faith, an Anglican minister flees his mission in Australia's northwest for the vast emptiness of the outback. In the desert he reflects on past transgressions and on his life's work.
To the Islands, a Lear-like tale of madness and destruction, was published when its author was only twenty-
The work of Randolph Stow is as original in the Australian literary tradition as William Faulkner in the American tradition. He has been hailed as "the least visible figure of that great twentieth-century triumvirate of Australian novelists whose other members are Patrick White and Christina Stead."
Text is re-releasing five of Stow's major works under the Text Classics imprint, with introductions by key figures in Australian literature.
Randolph Stow was born in 1935. While at university he sent his poems to a British publisher, and the resulting collection won the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal in 1957. He worked briefly as an anthropologist's assistant in New Guinea, returning to Australia after he fell seriously ill. In the 1960s he lectured at universities in Australia and England, and lived in America on a Harkness fellowship. Stow died in 2010.

About the Author

Julian Randolph ‘Mick' Stow was born in Western Australia, in 1935. His third novel To the Islands won the 1958 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Stow never allowed its two predecessors to be republished. He lived in the US on a Harkness fellowship in the 1960s. Stow died in 2010.

Bernadette Brennan is a critic and writer. She is currently working on a literary biography of Helen Garner. She teaches at the University of Sydney.