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Richard Flanagan recalls the issues that gave rise to writing The Unknown Terrorist and reflects on his understanding of the novel's theme. '[W]hen I finished The Unknown Terrorist', he says, 'I realised the novel wasn't about the things I daily told others it was about at all. It wasn't about politics or the state of the nation or the static of current affairs. It was about something else entirely: about love, about its inadequacy, about our hopeless need for it.'
