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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Breath is a story about the wildness of youth - the lust for excitement and terror, the determination to be extraordinary, the wounds that heal and those that don't - and about learning to live with its passing.'
Source: Publisher's website
Source: Publisher's website
Adaptations
-
form
y
Breath
( dir. Simon Baker
)
Australia
:
See Pictures
Gran Via Productions
Breath Productions
,
2016
8569342
2016
single work
film/TV
'Based on Tim Winton’s award-winning novel set in mid-70s coastal Australia. Two teenage boys, hungry for discovery, form an unlikely bond with a reclusive surfer and his mysterious wife. The boys are driven to take risks that will have a profound and lasting impact on their lives.'
Source: Screen Australia.
Notes
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Dedication: For Howard Willis.
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Included in the New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books List for 2008.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Large print.
- Sound recording.
- Braille.
Works about this Work
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Moving Beyond a Strange Spectatorship : Stories of Nonhuman Road Trauma in Australia
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Swamphen : A Journal of Cultural Ecology , no. 9 2023; 'What can nonhuman road trauma, more commonly referred to as ‘roadkill’, teach us about ecological crises and human culpability? Incidents of nonhuman road trauma could be described as strange encounters, revealing the shared trauma of the nonhumans and humans involved while simultaneously highlighting the supposed inevitability of such events. I argue that the choice to check the rearview mirror – to exhibit attentiveness and care in self-reflection – is an act of radical correspondence with the more-than-human. Such correspondence functions as a kind of non-spoken letter to both nonhumans and other human drivers; a letter calling for acts of care and attentiveness that acknowledge the nonhuman experience, mourn losses, and possibly instigate radical change when it comes to how nonhuman road trauma is thought about now and hopefully avoided in future. In her work on the ‘Anthropocene noir’, Deborah Bird Rose speaks of ‘the Anthropocene parallel’ in which humans are spectators of the suffering of nonhumans, and also spectators of a suffering that is our own. Written as both an essay and a personal log of my own experiences with nonhuman road trauma, this work draws on Rose’s idea in an attempt to reconcile the concept of what I term a ‘strange spectatorship’, in which humans observe, are implicated in, and turn away from the phenomenon of nonhuman road trauma and what such trauma reveals about human-nonhuman relations, particularly for settler-colonial Australians. Reflecting on anecdotal experiences as well as the representation of roadkill in Australian literature, I explore the strangeness perceived in how settler-colonial Australians are both actors and spectators in nonhuman road trauma. I grapple with the idea of such trauma as a means of better understanding the settler-colonial impact on Australian natural environments, and the consequences for both humans and nonhumans if we do not better address the ethical and ecological consequences of our modern road infrastructure.' (Publication abstract) -
Caught in the Rip : The First Seven Pages of Tim Winton's Breath
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Like an Australian Writer 2021; -
Tim Winton’s Pneumatic Materialism
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Interventions : International Journal of Postcolonial Studies , vol. 22 no. 5 2020; (p. 641-656)'The somatic effects of empire can be found in Tim Winton’s “pneumatic materialism”, an aesthetic preoccupation in his novels with moments of anoxia, or the deprivation of oxygen to the brain. This essay will consider how Winton's novel engage with pneumatic materialism in response to questions of uneven development traditionally associated with the Global South, thereby disrupting clear South–North distinctions. By blurring his concerns across the North–South divide, Winton shows a willingness to think of empire as a series of relations that are not bound by national or territorial borders so much as by substances in the air. He does this, I argue, in his use of the breath.' (Publication abstract)
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Why Are Australian Authors Obsessed with Killing off Kangaroos?
2019
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 4 March 2019;'Kangaroos are the most visible of Australia’s unique animals, but despite their charm and national icon status, Australian writers perpetually kill them off.' (Introduction)
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Kangaroos and Predators in Recent Australian Fiction : A Post-Pastoral Reading
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 32 no. 1/2 2018; (p. 94-108) 'When dusk falls in regional Australia, it is common to see mobs of kangaroos ranging in paddocks and on golf courses. They lounge about in family groups in the shade of remnant eucalyptus trees and share the pasture of bovines. They seem peaceful and idyllic, with their wide, dark eyes, cute joeys, and unique gait, and they appear to have close family bonds. They are the most visible and commonplace of Australia's unique animals. Despite all the charm of these awe-inspiring creatures and their status as a national icon, Australian writers perpetually kill them off. Recent Australian fiction has featured native animals that gain substantial narrative agency. Stephen Daisley's Coming Rain (2015) and Louis Nowra's Into That Forest (2012) undertake extended narratives from the perspective of native animals. The dingo and the thylacine, respectively, are given voice in fiction by these works. Domestic, nonnative animals in Australia have also received serious treatment recently by authors such as Eva Hornung and Michelle de Kretser. But Australian stories are less sympathetic toward the kangaroo. One appears struggling in a rabbit trap, doomed and dying in Charlotte Wood's The Natural Way of Things (2015), Tim Winton has one killed on the road, dissected and fed to dogs in Breath (2008). There is an inventory of such examples. Serious treatment of the extinct thylacine abounds, but the kangaroo is often represented as roadkill and dog food. The expendable nature of the kangaroo is a widely held view in Australia, so it is little wonder that this attitude is articulated in our fiction; but it is a bitter irony that the creature that defines us to the rest of the world is perpetually under siege, in life and in literature.' (Introduction)
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[Review] Breath
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , March vol. 87 no. 7 2008; (p. 36)
— Review of Breath 2008 single work novel -
A World of His Own
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 26 April 2008; (p. 13)
— Review of Breath 2008 single work novel -
Dark Poetry in the Ocean
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 26-27 April 2008; (p. 10-11)
— Review of Breath 2008 single work novel -
Breathless Prose
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 26 - 27 April 2008; (p. 23)
— Review of Breath 2008 single work novel -
The Last Gasp in a Small-Town Life
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 3-4 May 2008; (p. 28-29)
— Review of Breath 2008 single work novel -
The Rights and Wrongs of Publishing
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 15 March 2008; (p. 29) A column canvassing current literary news including comments from Henry Rosenbloom about global publishing rights as well as news of a Dutch translation of Tim Winton's Breath. The Dutch publication appeared some months prior to Breath being published in English. -
Breathing Space
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 26 April 2008; (p. 11) -
The Sea Side of Tim Winton
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 25-26 April 2008; (p. 26-27) The Sydney Morning Herald , 25-27 April 2008; (p. 28-29) -
Lost and Foundering Men
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 10-11 May 2008; (p. 40) -
Surfing the Zeitgeist
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 17 May 2008; (p. 10)
Awards
- 2010 shortlisted Randwick Award for Literature
- 2010 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2009 shortlisted Australian Booksellers Association Awards — BookPeople Book of the Year
- 2009 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Prize for Fiction
- 2009 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian Book of the Year
Last amended 13 Jul 2021 10:51:42
Settings:
- Western Australia,
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