AustLit
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My Life and Other Fictions : A Collection of Short Stories (and Why They Were Written)
selected work
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'These are arresting stories that cast a spotlight on the borderlands of black and white, desire and fate, life and death. A six-year-old Aboriginal girl, dumb and abused and deceased, yearns for her mother’s touch. The illiterate hangman of Ned Kelly wants to do his first job ‘good’. A blind translator disembarks at a desert town to decipher a curse that is killing language. The commander of HMS Antaeus sails with the shades of Ulysses and the poets Dante and Virgil to claim Mt Purgatory for King and Country. The same-named son of his same-named father is called to assume his birth right at the scene of a railroad accident. After countless lifetimes of conflict, an aspirant surrenders, and a leaf falls.
'Within these 12 fictions, 74 people perish, while the demise of hundreds, or thousands, of others is inferred. But they are far from being morbid meditations. With ethos, pathos and humour, Giacometti’s characters illuminate their ignorant Fate, or attempt to transcend it.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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[Review Essay] My Life and Other Fictions
2017
single work
review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , December 2017;
— Review of My Life and Other Fictions : A Collection of Short Stories (and Why They Were Written) 2017 selected work short story'Michael Giacometti is skilled in the short form – with much to excite, to heighten our senses, before a swift close. Running through many of the stories in this collection is discovery and the yearning, futility and fallout that it brings. The act of discovery, the process of searching, can be driven by boastful pride or by reflection. Giacometti takes his readers on an arc of exploration, from the epic – journeys into Australia’s deserts and across the Southern Pacific ocean at the time of the Napoleonic Wars – to looking for answers inside ourselves.' (Introduction)
-
[Review Essay] My Life and Other Fictions
2017
single work
review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , December 2017;
— Review of My Life and Other Fictions : A Collection of Short Stories (and Why They Were Written) 2017 selected work short story'Michael Giacometti is skilled in the short form – with much to excite, to heighten our senses, before a swift close. Running through many of the stories in this collection is discovery and the yearning, futility and fallout that it brings. The act of discovery, the process of searching, can be driven by boastful pride or by reflection. Giacometti takes his readers on an arc of exploration, from the epic – journeys into Australia’s deserts and across the Southern Pacific ocean at the time of the Napoleonic Wars – to looking for answers inside ourselves.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2018 shortlisted Mascara Avant-garde Awards — Fiction
