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Gerald Murnane

ジェラルド・マーナン

Jerarudo Mānane

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1939-02-25 （Coburg, Victoria）
Nationality
Australian
Languages
English, Hungarian
Religion
Roman Catholic
Residence History
Coburg, Victoria → Bendigo, Victoria → Western District, Victoria → Macleod, Victoria → Goroke, Victoria

Career

Occupations
novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, teacher
Active Years
1974-2025
Affiliations
Victoria Racing Club
Influenced
J. M. Coetzee, Ben Lerner
Nominations
Miles Franklin Award shortlist (2018, Border Districts), NSW Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize shortlist (2015, A Million Windows), NSW Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize shortlist (2019, Border Districts)

Education

University of Melbourne
Faculty of Arts
Degree: Bachelor of Arts
Period: 不明
Year of Graduation: 1969
Country: Australia
BA obtained
De La Salle College, Malvern
Period: 不明
Year of Graduation: 1956
Country: Australia
Graduated secondary school

Awards

Patrick White Award
1999
Result: 受賞
Melbourne Prize for Literature
2009
Result: 受賞
Prime Minister's Literary Awards
2018
Work: Border Districts
Category: フィクション
Organization: Australian Government
Result: 受賞
Victorian Premier's Literary Award
2016
Work: Something for the Pain
Category: ノンフィクション
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

The Plains

1982 Novel

A fable about an unnamed filmmaker traveling to 'inner Australia' to film the plains under wealthy landowners' patronage, blurring metaphysics of appearance and reality with Australian landscape.

memorylandscapeappearance and realityidentity
Translations
  • Die Ebenen (German)
  • Las llanuras (Spanish)
  • Les planes (Catalan)
  • Slätterna (Swedish)
  • Ravnice (Serbian)

Inland

1988 Novel

Explores relations between memory, image, and landscape.

memorylandscape
Translations
  • Inlandet (Swedish)

Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs

2005 Essay collection

Essays on memory, image, landscape, and fiction vs non-fiction.

memoryimagelandscape

Bibliography

  • Tamarisk Row (1974)
  • A Lifetime on Clouds (1976)
  • The Plains (1982)
  • Inland (1988)
  • Landscape with Landscape (1985)
  • Velvet Waters (1990)
  • Emerald Blue (1995)
  • Barley Patch (2009)
  • A History of Books (2012)
  • A Million Windows (2014)
  • Border Districts (2017)
  • Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs (2005)
  • Something for the Pain: A Memoir of the Turf (2015)
  • Last Letter to a Reader (2021)
  • Green Shadows and Other Poems (2019)
  • A Season on Earth (2019)

Translations of Works

  • Translated into German, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, etc.

Style & Themes

Literary Style
distinctive proselong grammatical sentencesnarrated by association and fugue-like repetitionfragmentary style avoiding plot and characterization
Recurring Motifs
plainslandscapehorse racingimages of memoryblurring fiction and autobiography

Legacy

Regarded as one of Australia's greatest living writers, tipped for Nobel, acclaimed for distinctive prose exploring memory, perception, identity, and Australian landscape, blurring fiction and autobiography.

In Popular Culture

  • Documentary 'Words and Silk' (1989)
  • Spoken word album 'Words in Order' (2018)

Quotes

  • 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.
    Source: The Plains (1982)

Trivia

  • Passionate horse racing follower
  • Dedicated golfer
  • Self-taught Hungarian after reading Gyula Illyés
  • Wrote a 1600-word palindrome
  • Briefly trained for Roman Catholic priesthood