AustLit
Texts
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y
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Sydney
:
Random House
,
2013
Z1928536
2013
single work
novel
historical fiction
(taught in 5 units)
'A novel of the cruelty of war, and tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love.
'August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife two years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever.
'This savagely beautiful novel is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.' (Publisher's blurb)
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The Goldfinch, Tartt
The Sense of an Ending, Barnes
The English Patient, Ondaatje
A Visit from the Goon Squad, Egan
The Complete Maus, Spiegelman
Description
This unit explores books judged to be the best. It focuses on the qualities of books that win literary prizes and the impact the prize system has on the production and reception of literature. We will read primarily British, American, and Australian novels that have won literary prizes, such as the Booker and Pulitzer prizes, the Miles Franklin Award, the Orange Prize for fiction, and works by authors who have won the Nobel Prize for literature. Topics of particular interest include the idea of literary quality, popular versus critical acclaim, and the future of a literary canon, or list of the finest or most important books.
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