On the Track to Tourmaline single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 On the Track to Tourmaline
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Ever since reading Randolph Stow's Tourmaline nearly five years ago, it has held a strange power over me. It might not have been the most highly regarded or publicly well received of Stow's novels within his lifetime, but within the writing community there appears to be quiet and growing recognition that it might be his most resistantly alluring. Bernadette Brennan's 2004 essay 'Words of Water', which describes Tourmaline as deeply poetic' yet 'silent' (144), gestured towards this renewal of interest '  in the novel over the last two decades. A mentor once suggested to me that the prose-poem of a first chapter might be the best opening to an Australian novel ever, and whenever I meet someone who has read Tourmaline, it always feels like something of a shared secret.'

 (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Westerly vol. 67 no. 2 2022 25521160 2022 periodical issue

     In approaching this issue's publication, we found ourselves reflecting on a line by the poet Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, from his poem ከዋክብት መንገድ  / The Journey of Black Stars. In translation, Yirga writes, 'little things cast big shadows' (36). Small actions, In a poem, a story, or in any moment of contact, cast their ripples and edge out into the world, producing the unexpected. Contemplating the themes prominent in the works collected here, among them closeness, joy, sympathy and connection, we began to recognise one of those ripples as a possible catalyst for the works we have gathered, even if its effect wasn't noticeable at the time of curation. (Editorial introduction)

    2022
    pg. 109-118
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Westerly vol. 69 no. 1 August 2024 28691545 2024 periodical issue 2024 pg. 58-75
Last amended 8 Dec 2022 08:31:31
109-118 On the Track to Tourmalinesmall AustLit logo Westerly
58-75 On the Track to Tourmalinesmall AustLit logo Westerly
Subjects:
  • Tourmaline Randolph Stow , 1963 single work novel
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