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Issue Details: First known date: 1996... 1996 Night Letters : A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Every night for twenty nights in a hotel room in Venice, an Australian man recently diagnosed with an incurable disease writes a letter home to a friend. In these letters he reflects on questions of mortality, seduction and the search for paradise in deeply life-enhancing ways.' (From publisher's web site.)

Adaptations

y separately published work icon Night Letters Susan Rogers , Chris Drummond , 2002 Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2004 Z964489 2002 single work drama

'Night Letters is the epic and profoundly moving story of Robert, a man who embarks on an odyssey of body and mind after being diagnosed with an incurable disease. On his journey, Robert encounters extraordinary people, all struggling as he is with the desire for intimacy and escape, for understanding and meaning, for any way to beguile time. Based upon Robert Dessaix's award-winning novel, this deeply personal and magical tale transcends the barriers of time in its search for insight into the human condition. ' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Featured by the BIG Book Club, an initiative supported by The Advertiser in partnership with Arts SA, The Australia Council for the Arts, Channel 7 and 5AA and the public libraries of South Australia to promote a love of reading, discussion and literature, February 2004.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Picador , 1997 .
      image of person or book cover 5585882314273831762.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 275p.
      Description: port.
      ISBN: 0330359916
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      St. Martin's Press ,
      1997 .
      image of person or book cover 3555914298481450648.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 275p.p.
      ISBN: 9780312169503, 0312169507
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Arcadia ,
      1998 .
      image of person or book cover 7614099572581345198.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 275p.p.
      ISBN: 9781900850124, 1900850125
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Brio Books , 2017 .
      image of person or book cover 4152045497801331298.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 320p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published July 2017.

      ISBN: 9781925143959, 9781925143942
Form: audiobook

Works about this Work

A Sacred Journey to Naples : Michelle de Krester's Questions of Travel Roberta Trape , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Le Simplegadi , no. 16 2016; (p. 95-117)

Within the theme of Australian Travel to Italy, the article will analyse images of Naples in Michelle de Kretser’s novel Questions of Travel (2012). It will begin with a short introduction to Australian travel and an outline of de Kretser’s journeys in Italy, as well as her comments on her Italian experiences (Trapè 2015). It will then move on to the treatment of Italy in her novel. I will analyse which views of Italy the writer presents in Questions of Travel in order to define her way of approaching and responding to this country. I will do this by focusing on her descriptions of Italy and will avail myself of the theoretical discussions of description provided by Philippe Hamon.

Full Text PDF

Beauty Robert Dessaix , 2012 single work essay
— Appears in: As I Was Saying 2012; (p. 116-137)
From Notebook to Novel and from Diary to Dante : Reading Robert Dessaix’s Night Letters Roberta Trape , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Coolabah , no. 3 2009; (p. 129-135)

'This paper has developed out of a larger work in progress, which focuses on representations of Italy in contemporary Australian fiction and non-fiction prose. This larger project aims to add to an established body of work on travel writing by considering Australian texts that describe Australian travel in Italy, Italian people and Italian places.

In this paper, I will specifically focus on the representations of Italy in Robert Dessaix's novel Night Letters (1996). My paper will explore the relationship between the writer's actual journey in Italy and that of the creative work's main character. The novel offers the protagonist's account in the form of letters, which describe his travel from Switzerland across Northern Italy to Venice. I will begin by briefly outlining the Italian itinerary followed by Dessaix that would eventually inspire the novel. I will then explore the relationship between Dessaix's notebooks recording his two journeys in Italy and the literary accomplishment of Night Letters. My aim is to show ways in which an itinerary becomes a story, a complex narrative. Reference will be made to factual accounts and descriptions in the author's own diaries with an analysis of their generative role as key sources for the fictional work. This will be done through a close reading of particular passages, in the diaries and in the novel, concerning the same event.

A comparative analysis of the notebooks and Night Letters can show that Dessaix's diary entries relating to Italian places are woven into the fictional fabric of the 'night letters' according to a unifying principle.' Source: Roberta Trapè.

Italy and the Transformation of the Traveller in Robert Dessaix's Night Letters Roberta Trape , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Imagined Australia : Reflections around the Reciprocal Construction of Identity between Australia and Europe 2009; (p. 215-231)
This article focuses on 'the representation of Italy in Robert Dessaix's Night Letters (1996.)Trape states that the novel 'adds to a considerable corpus of texts by Australian writers, which are based on their travel experiences' and that Night Letters presents a process of self-knowledge and self-discovery, which unfolds through the discovery of the country.' (216)
Australian Literature in the Translation Zone : Robert Dessaix and David Malouf Robert Dixon , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Resourceful Reading : The New Empiricism, eResearch and Australian Literary Culture 2009; (p. 87-104)
Dixon applies the techniques of close and 'distant' reading to explore contemporary Australian literature in the 'translation zone' with other languages. He discusses the influences, national and international, which lead to translations, and the significance of translators.
Paperbacks Anne Susskind , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 16 August 1997; (p. 12s)

— Review of When the Man in the Gold Mustang Met the Girl from the Pink Pussycat James Cockington , 1997 single work novel ; Night Letters : A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy Robert Dessaix , 1996 single work novel
Tall Tales, but True? Peter Craven , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , October vol. 6 no. 8 1996; (p. 38-41)

— Review of The Conversations at Curlow Creek David Malouf , 1996 single work novel ; Night Letters : A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy Robert Dessaix , 1996 single work novel
The Focus of Our Imagination A. P. Riemer , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: Voices , Summer (1996-1997) vol. 6 no. 4 1996; (p. 112-115)

— Review of The Conversations at Curlow Creek David Malouf , 1996 single work novel ; Night Letters : A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy Robert Dessaix , 1996 single work novel ; The Island in the Mind Rodney Hall , 1996 selected work novel
Truths That are Greater Than Finance Jennifer Moran , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 11 October 1997; (p. C10)

— Review of The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow Thea Astley , 1996 single work novel ; Night Letters : A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy Robert Dessaix , 1996 single work novel
Dead Reckoning John Nieuwenhuizen , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 3-4 August 1996; (p. rev 8)

— Review of Night Letters : A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy Robert Dessaix , 1996 single work novel
On Translating Paolo Bartoloni , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 63 no. 1 2003; (p. 83-92)
Robert Dessaix's Journey into French Ninette Boothroyd , Michelle Royer , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 63 no. 1 2003; (p. 95-101)
Into the Light Robert Dessaix , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 3-4 April 2004; (p. 16-17)
Dessaix discusses his experience of watching a performance of the play Night Letters, adapted from his autobiographical novel, Night Letters : A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy Edited and Annotated by Igor Miazmov.
Teaching Nomadism : Inter/Cultural Studies in the Context of Translation Studies Russell West-Pavlov , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Transcultural Graffiti : Diasporic Writing and the Teaching of Literary Studies 2005; (p. 97-109)
General discussion including a section on Robert Dessaix.
'Not, Perhaps, Quite the Experience St Anthony Might Have Hoped for Me, but Illuminating Nonetheless' : Allusion in Robert Dessaix's 'Night Letters' Noel Henricksen , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 67 no. 3 2007; (p. 191-205)
Last amended 27 Sep 2024 14:27:02
Subjects:
  • c
    Italy,
    c
    Western Europe, Europe,
  • c
    Switzerland,
    c
    Western Europe, Europe,
  • c
    Australia,
    c
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