Cirrus@Austlit

Born in 1961 in regional Tasmania, Richard Flanagan was the fifth of six children. Educated at state schools, Flanagan left school at the age of sixteen to work as a labourer in the bush. He grew up in the mining town of Rosebery and in 1983 he earned a Bachelor of Arts (History) from the University of Tasmania. In 1984 he was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford’s Worcester College where he earned a Master of Letters. 

He published his first novel in 1994, Death of a River Guide , a reflective account of a drowning man’s life and ancestors. Influenced by Flanagan’s own experience as a Kayak guide on Tasmania’s Franklin River the novel was awarded the 1996 Australian National Fiction Award. This was followed by the highly acclaimed novel The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997) which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards Prize for Fiction in 1998. In 2001 he went on to win the Commonwealth Writers Prize as well as the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Gould's Book of Fish : A Novel in Twelve Fish . A novel about a 19th Century convict living in Tasmania, Flanagan’s contribution to Tasmania identity and literature is immense. In 2006 he published the thriller The Unknown Terrorist (2006). His next novel, Wanting (2008) is a historical fiction that details an Aboriginal girl and novelist Charles Dickens' experience in 19th Century Tasmania. 

Flanagan's 2014 novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, was met with international and national acclaim being awarded the Man Booker Prize. It was also jointly awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for fiction in 2014 alongside Steven Carroll's A World of Other People . Flanagan donated the $40,000 in prize money to the Indigenous Literacy Fund, saying 'If just one of those children in turn becomes a writer, if just one brings to Australia and to the world an idea of the universe that arises out of that glorious lineage of 60,000 years of Australian civilisation, then I will think this prize has rewarded not just me, but us all.'

First Person (2017), was inspired by Flanagan’s experience as a ghost-writer for Australian conman Johan Friedrich Hohenberger’s memoir. It is a fictional account of corruption, morality, and the influence of those around us. The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (2020) explores themes of harsh realities such as the climate crisis and impending death while three siblings argue over their dying mother’s medical treatment. 
In 2017, Flanagan withdrew his novels from consideration for the 2018 Miles Franklin Award and any future Miles Franklin Awards.

In addition to his acclaimed novels, Flanagan is a prolific essayist and nonfiction writer. Flanagan has also published a history of the Tasmanian Green Movement, The Rest of the World Is Watching (1990), A Terrible Beauty: History of the Gordon River Country (1985). “Parish-Fed Bastards”: A History of the Politics of the Unemployed in Britain, 1884–1939 (1991) and On the Mountain (1996), a pictorial and natural history of Mount Wellington, with Jamie Kirkpatrick and photographs by Peter Dombrovskis.

Flanagan’s 2023 memoir Question 7 is a blend of history and autofiction. Awarded the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize, Flanagan is the only author to have won both the Booker for Fiction and the Gifford for non-fiction. In his pre-recorded speech, Flanagan refused to accept the prize money until the sponsor, Baillie Gifford, put forward a plan to reduce its investment in fossil fuels. He stated ‘and were I not to speak of the terrifying impact fossil fuels are having on my island home, that same vanishing world that spurred me to write Question 7, I would be untrue to the spirit of my book.’