image of person or book cover 2734173143748348644.jpg
y separately published work icon The Sound of One Hand Clapping single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1997... 1997 The Sound of One Hand Clapping
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In the winter of 1954, in a construction camp in the remote Tasmanian wilderness, when Sonja Buloh was three years old and her father was drinking too much, Sonja's mother walked into a blizzard never to return. Some thirty-five years later, when Sonja visits Tasmania and her drunkard father, the shadows of the past begin to intrude into the present - changing forever his living death and her ordered life.' (Source: Libraries Australia).

Exhibitions

18388247
18387981

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon The Sound of One Hand Clapping Richard Flanagan , ( dir. Richard Flanagan ) Adelaide : Artist Services , 1997 Z1033852 1997 single work film/TV

'It's 1968. Sixteen-year-old Sonja leaves her alcoholic father and troubled past, gets on a bus and never looks back. Twenty years later she decides it's time to find out what she was running from. Single and pregnant, she returns to the migrant worker's camp in the Tasmanian Highlands she once called home and finally uncovers the truth she wasn't told as a child.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 18/3/2014)

Notes

  • Dedication: For Archie Flanagan, Helen Flanagan, Anton Smolej. Forgive me its failings, but I tell it with love.
  • Discussion notes available.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Picador ,
      1997 .
      image of person or book cover 8743489739859669569.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 425p.
      Reprinted: 1998 Seven times , 1999 Four times
      Note/s:
      • Published: 12th March 1999
      ISBN: 0333352911, 9780330352925
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Grove Press ,
      1997 .
      image of person or book cover 741196849523493663.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 425p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 1st March 2001
      ISBN: 9780802137845 (pbk.)
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Picador , 1998 .
      image of person or book cover 8401801760620654488.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 425p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 1st September 1998
      ISBN: 0330360426
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Picador ,
      1999 .
      image of person or book cover 4935888011893986943.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 425p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 12th March 1999
      ISBN: 9780330352925, 033035292X
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Atlantic Monthly Press ,
      2001 .
      image of person or book cover 8386889828745517850.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 425p.
      Edition info: 1st Atlantic Monthly Press ed.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 1st March 2001
      ISBN: 0871138026, 9780802137845
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Vintage UK ,
      2016 .
      image of person or book cover 6514608027191883993.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Booktopia
      Extent: 448p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 26th May 2016

      ISBN: 9781784704186
    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Penguin , 2018 .
      image of person or book cover 84987957517880106.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 448 p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 19 March 2018.
      ISBN: 9780143790778 (pbk)
Alternative title: Am Anfang der Erinnerung : Roman
Language: German
    • Munich,
      c
      Germany,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Kindler ,
      1998 .
      image of person or book cover 9156687325919246692.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 382p.
      ISBN: 3463403455

Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Sound recording.
  • Large print.

Works about this Work

The Novel Road to the Global South : Australian Fiction, International Exposure and the Transnational Politics of Disadvantage Sascha Morrell , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel 2023;
More Than ‘Rotten Apples’ : Australian Literature and the Possibility of Redemption for Men Who Abuse Daniel Moss , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 20 no. 1 2020;

'Popular analyses of gendered violence focus on the need for an individually-focussed approach to the problem which calls for greater responsibility and accountability for individual men. Men who use violence are often viewed as bad apples; or as deviant to the moral codes which are necessary in a moral society. But contemporary Australian authors examine the socio-cultural, political and economic structures that promulgate inequality according to gender, class, age and culture. This inequality manifests in the gendered violence which Christos Tsiolkas, Richard Flanagan, Charlotte Wood, Zoe Morrison and Sofie Laguna portray as a product of neo-liberalism. The men within their fiction are affected by disconnection and individualism within our neo-liberal, patriarchal society. The male protagonists are subjects of, as well as producers of dominant practices of masculinity. Equally, their female characters are not merely passive victims of gendered power as they protest against and challenge the structures that support inequality. Through post-structural analyses which leaves room for contradiction and nuance within characters, these contemporary Australian authors are able to maintain hope for difference and redemption in the lives of men who use violence and abuse, and the women and children who are affected. They consciously avoid separating people in to categories of good or evil, or just and unjust, given that these dichotomies are central to the patriarchal and capitalistic systems of individuality and competition which they critique.' (Publication abstract) 

Richard Flanagan's "Post-post" and the Mapping of the Altermodern Salhia Ben-Messahel , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Richard Flanagan : Critical Essays 2018; (p. 103-117)
"Smashing and Singing and Sobbing and Howling": Sound and Richard Flanagan's Tasmania Joseph Cummins , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Richard Flanagan : Critical Essays 2018; (p. 59-71)
Circles of Violence: Historical Constellations in 'Death of a River Guide' and 'The Sound of One Hand Clapping' Robert Dixon , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Richard Flanagan : Critical Essays 2018; (p. 21-41)
Lives Sustained by the Memory of Love Jennifer Moran , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 4 October 1997; (p. C11)

— Review of The Sound of One Hand Clapping Richard Flanagan , 1997 single work novel
Echoes of Demidenko and Tasmanian Madness Peter Pierce , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 25 October 1997; (p. 11s)

— Review of The Sound of One Hand Clapping Richard Flanagan , 1997 single work novel
Lighting the Fire of Language Under a Migrant's Experience Catherine Ford , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 2 November 1997; (p. 12)

— Review of The Sound of One Hand Clapping Richard Flanagan , 1997 single work novel
Tassie's Deep Blues Anna Johnson , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 8-9 November 1997; (p. rev 29)

— Review of The Sound of One Hand Clapping Richard Flanagan , 1997 single work novel
Picture of a Thousand Words Katharine England , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 22 November 1997; (p. 23)

— Review of The Sound of One Hand Clapping Richard Flanagan , 1997 single work novel
Australian Writing : Deep Ecology and Julia Leigh's The Hunter Tony Hughes-d'Aeth , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 1 no. 2002; (p. 19-31)
Slovene Immigrants in Australia in Richard Flanagan's Novel The Sound of One Hand Clapping Mirko Jurak , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Acta Neophilologica , vol. 34 no. 1-2 2001; (p. 17-29, 122)
Richard Flanagan's Novel and Film 'The Sound of One Hand Clapping' and Australia's Multicultural Film Genre Adi Wimmer , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , November vol. 48 no. 2003; (p. 127-143) Postcolonial Subjects : Canadian and Australian Perspectives 2004; (p. 179-196)
Re-Thinking Marginality : Class, Identity and Desire in Contemporary Australian Writing Antonio Jose Simoes Da Silva , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 1 no. 1 2004; (p. 45-68)
Memories in a Suitcase : Migrancy and Translation in Richard Flanagan's The Sound of One Hand Clapping Alice Healy , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Regenerative Spirit : Volume 2 : (Un)settling, (Dis)locations, (Post-)colonial, (Re)presentations - Australian Post-Colonial Reflections 2004; (p. 264-271)
Healy explores the adaptation of novels to film, and the processes this involves of translation and interpretation. She focuses on The Sound of One Hand Clapping, where both novel and film were written by the author at much the same time, with the translation being something of a dialogical process.
Last amended 10 Apr 2024 14:05:25
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