''Death of a River Guide'' is a 1994 novel by Australian author

Richard Flanagan Richard Miller Flanagan (born 1961) is an Australian writer, who won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his novel ''The Narrow Road to the Deep North (novel), The Narrow Road to the Deep North'' and the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for ''Question 7'', ...

. ''Death of a River Guide'' was Flanagan's first novel.

Synopsis

As Aljaz Cosini lies dying at the bottom of a river in Tasmania he starts to experience a series of flashbacks, forcing him to re-examine his own life.

Critical reception

The reviewer on ''The Novel Approach'' website stated: "It's startling (and, quite frankly, a little depressing) to realise that Death of a River Guide is Flanagan's first novel. Not only is he in complete command of the language—in his descriptions of Aljaz's interiority as well as his bountiful descriptions of the Franklin River and its surroundings—but structurally, too, the novel is almost perfect." In ''The Canberra Times'' Marian Eldridge noted the connection between character and landscape: "Land use, convicts, brutality, migration, and racial prejudice all are strands in Aljaz's heritage. When, I wondered, are we going to consider the original inhabitants of this beautiful island? I was not disappointed. What the author has created is a picture of an individual that is also a mosaic of the history of Tasmania."

Awards

* Festival Awards for Literature (SA), National Fiction Award, 1996: winner * Victorian Premier's Literary Award, Shaeffer Pen Prize for First Fiction, 1995: winner * NBC Banjo Awards, NBC Banjo Award for Fiction, 1995: shortlisted *

Miles Franklin Literary Award The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–195 ...

1995: shortlisted

Notes

This novel has been translated into French (2000), Slovenian (2003), Dutch (2003), Spanish (2003), German (2004), Italian (2005), Polish (2017) and Bulgarian (2018). It has been reported that this novel was inspired by the death in 1985 of Julien Weber, a tour guide who died on the Franklin river at “the cauldron”. Flanagan wrote in his 2023 book, Question 7, that ''Death of a River Guide'' was based on his own experience.

Interviews

*"The Write Stuff" - interview by Giles Hug

References