Guests of the New Theatre: Richard Flanagan

Richard Flanagan in Warsaw! Conducted by: Piotr Kieżun Translation: Natalia Mętrak-Ruda

One of the most important contemporary prose writers, winner of numerous literary awards, including the Booker Prize for Paths of the North, will visit Poland in connection with the premiere of Question number seven (tł. Maciej Świerkocki). In this hypnotic prose, combining self-fiction, essay and novel, the word settlement returns as a chorus: Richard Flanagan with his father and mother, Tasmania with her past, Japan with her history, and also the author with herself. This book was awarded the Baillie Gifford Prize, was included in the final of the French Femina Étranger award for the best foreign books, received a nomination for the Medici Prize, and was also included in the top ten books of the year in the ranking of The Washington Post.

Richard Miller Flanagan was born in 1961 in Longford, Tasmania, in a family of descendants of Irish exiles during the Great Famine. He grew up in the mining town of Rosebery on the west coast of the island. He graduated from the University of Tasmania and Worcester College, Oxford. Before making himself known as an outstanding prose writer, he wrote four non-fiction books, also as a ghostwriter.

He made his novelistic debut in 1994 with The Death of a River Guide, which has been hailed as “one of the most successful debuts in the Australian literary world”. In total, he has published almost twenty books, including the Polish-published Paths of the North, The Clap of One Hand, William Gould's Book of Fish, Desire, Unknown Terrorist, The First Person and The Living Sea of Daydreams.

He is the winner of numerous literary awards, including the Booker Prize for the monumental Paths of the North, a novel on which he worked for more than twelve years.

In addition to writing, he also works in journalism, directing and screenwriting. He has published in Le Monde, The Daily Telegraph, Suddeutsche Zeitung, The Monthly, The New York Times and The New Yorker. His biography was the subject of the BAFTA-winning documentary Life after Death. The Washington Post called him one of the most important modern novelists.

If Rebecca West had not kissed H.G. Wells, H.G. Wells would not have fled to Switzerland to write a novel in which everything burns, without Wells' novel Leo Szilard would not have come up with the idea of a nuclear chain reaction, without the idea of a nuclear chain reaction Szilard would not have been terrified by a new destructive force if he had not been terrified by a new destructive force force, would not have persuaded Einstein to seek help from Roosevelt, if Einstein had not sought help from Roosevelt, the Manhattan Project would not have been created, without the Manhattan Project there is no leverage that Thomas Ferebee He is supposed to release at 8:15 p.m. on August 6, 1945, thirty-one thousand feet above Hiroshima, neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki, so no bomb falls, and one hundred thousand, one hundred sixty thousand, or two hundred thousand people live, but my father dies.

Balancing on the border between biography, essay and fiction, Richard Flanagan weaves his family's story with the pivotal events of the 20th century to reveal the incredible sequences that shape the paths of our destinies, and to unravel the intricate threads of his own history. From a trivial kiss to the beginnings of nuclear physics, from the captivity of a father in Japan to the dropping of an atomic bomb by the Americans, from a dramatic descent down the Tasmanian river to the discovery of literature, from innocent family conversations to the painful exposure of one's own roots inextricably linked to the island's difficult history.

Question number seven is a story about life as unbridled chaos, in which cases line up in chain reactions of unrelenting logic. It is also a feverish prose full of dreams and memories, masterfully recounting how our lives derive from the stories of others. And of those that we invent about ourselves.

Piotr Kieżun — editor, literary critic, coordinator of cultural projects. He heads the Publishing Office at the Book Institute, responsible for publishing such magazines as Literatura na Świat, Tróczość and Dialog. From 2010 to 2025, he was a member of the editorial board of the weekly Kultura Liberalna, where he headed the book reviews department. He specializes in French literature. Long-term external expert in the Boy-Żeleński Publishing Support Programme implemented by the French Institute in Poland. Member of the jury of the Adam Wodnicki Award.

Photo by Penguin Random House Australia