Awards

• Long-listed for Miles Franklin Literary Award 2013.
• Shortlisted for Miles Franklin Literary Award 2013.

Overview

Laura Fraser grows up in Sydney, motherless, with a cold father and an artistic bent. Ravi Mendes is on the other side of the world--his humble father dead, his mother struggling, determined to succeed in computer science. Their stories alternate throughout Michelle de Kretser's ravishing new novel, culminating in unlikely fates for them both, destinies influenced by travel--voluntary in her case, enforced in his.
With money from an inheritance, Laura sets off to see the world, returning to Sydney to work for a travel guide. There she meets Ravi, a Sri Lankan political exile who wants only to see a bit of Australia and make a living. Where do these disparate characters truly belong? With her trademark subtlety, wit, and dazzling prose, Michelle de Kretser shows us that, in the 21st century, they belong wherever they want to and can be--home or away.

Full Product Details

Author:   Michelle de Kretser
Publisher:   Allen & Unwin
Imprint:   Allen & Unwin
Weight:   0.800kg
ISBN:  

9781743311004

ISBN 10:   1743311001
Pages:   528
Publication Date:   01 October 2012
Audience:   General/trade ,  General/trade ,  General ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Reviews

Kate writes: Questions of Travel charts two very different lives. Laura travels the world before returning to Sydney, where she works for a publisher of travel guides. Ravi dreams of being a tourist until he is driven from Sri Lanka by devastating events. Around these two superbly drawn characters, a double narrative assembles an enthralling array of people, places and stories - from Theo, whose life plays out in the long shadow of the past, to Hana, an Ethiopian woman determined to reinvent herself in Australia. De Kretser's thoughtful and evocative prose perfectly conjures place and time as we follow the dual narratives of Laura and Ravi. Laura is a tourist of the world who returns to Sydney for work in travel publishing, while Ravi longs for his own travels until life cruelly intervenes. Life-affirming and surprisingly funny, Questions of Travel is a superb novel which, like all memorable travel, generates meaning through its tangents and accidents. Questions of Travel is an extraordinary novel from a writer at the top of her game.

Author Information

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer. She is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which was widely praised by writers such as AS Byatt, Hilary Mantel and William Boyd and won a swag of awards, including: the 2008 NSW Premier's Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal. The Lost Dog was also shortlisted for the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the Western Australian Premier's Australia-Asia Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Asia-Pacific Region) and Orange Prize's Shadow Youth Panel. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction.

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