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Question 7

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Question 7

By: Richard Flanagan
Narrated by: Richard Flanagan
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About this listen

By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West's affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this genre-defying daisy chain of events reaches fission when Flanagan as a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river not knowing if he is to live or to die.

At once a love song to his island home and to his parents, this hypnotic melding of dream, history, literature, place and memory is about how reality is never made by realists and how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves.

©2023 Richard Flanagan (P)2023 Penguin Random House Australia Audio Essays Nonfiction Thought-Provoking
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Not a chronological memoir but a tapestry of memories some crystal clear and others dreamlike. He has had an unusual life and I’m grateful he has the ability to share it the way he has.

An Extraordinary book

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Another masterpiece from one of Australia’s best authors and storytellers. Highly recommended. A must read.

Stunning

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It’s three weeks since publication and I’ve read it twice. Too quickly the first time. The second, with the benefit of hindsight, so rich and thoughtful.

The audio production is a little scratchy, even to the extent of leaving in an editorial comment by the narrator. But it felt like I was in Flanagan’s study with him reading to me.

Historical, memoir, love letter, time, genocide. It packs a lot in, and there is space for the reader to ponder.

Well worth my reread

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Beautifully written and read by Richard Flanagan. Part memoir, part reflection on life and memory, part rumination on indigeneity, colonialism and racism. Thought provoking exploration of the use of the atom bomb against Japan in World War II and the nature of war itself. Ranging widely and deeply this was a pleasure to listen to…

A meditation on life and memory

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This book is lyrical and philosophical, Flanagan writing from a place of curiosity and compassion. Through family and personal experience he muses on questions of how an atrocity as vast and hideous as Hiroshima could occur.

Interesting literary nonfiction

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