Renowned Australian writer Martin Flanagan will speak and read from his work as the fall 2015 guest of the Schoenfeldt Distinguished Writers Series. His talk will take place on Thursday, November 5, at 7 p.m., in the Bauccio Commons Boardroom, and is free and open to the public.
Flanagan is the author of 13 books of fiction, nonfiction, and poems, including The Call, an imaginative reconstruction of the life of Tom Wills, the founder of Australian football, which was adapted into a play in 2004. Martin’s other books include collections of his newspaper essays, several books about his beloved “footy,” an autobiographical novel (Going Away), and a masterful inquiry into sport and violence and Australian character called The Game in Time of War. He is also the author, with his late father Arch Flanagan, of The Line, based on Arch’s experiences on the infamous Burma Railway, when he was enslaved by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War.
Widely considered Australia’s finest journalist, Flanagan was born into a large family in Tasmania (one of his brothers is the novelist Richard Flanagan, winner of the 2014 Booker Award) and graduated in law from the University of Tasmania in 1975. He and his family live in Melbourne, where he writes for The Age newspaper on sport, politics, Australian culture, and the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. His most recent work, The Short Long Book, is about Aboriginal footballer Michael Long.
The Schoenfeldt Distinguished Writers Series was founded in 1988 by Rev. Arthur Schoenfeldt, C.S.C., of the University’s Holy Cross community, and his sister, University regent Suzanne Schoenfeldt Fields, in honor of their parents. Twice each year (usually in February and October), Schoenfeldt guest writers offer a public reading and also visit students and faculty during their time on The Bluff, especially in literature, science, and journalism classes.
For more information contact Brian Doyle at 8225 or bdoyle@up.edu.