''Questions of Travel'' is a 2012 novel by Australian author

Michelle de Kretser Michelle de Kretser (born 1957) is an Australian novelist who was born in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), and moved to Australia in 1972 when she was 14. Her father was Oswald Leslie De Kretser III, a judge of the Supreme Court of Ceylon. Education an ...

. It won the 2013

Miles Franklin 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 (law), will of Miles Franklin ...

and the 2013

Prime Minister's Literary Award The Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards (PMLA) were announced at the end of 2007 by the incoming First Rudd ministry following the 2007 Australian federal election, 2007 election. They are administered by the Minister for the Arts (Aust ...

for Fiction.

Description

The novel concerns two main characters: Laura—an Australian woman who travels the world before returning to Sydney to work for a publisher of travel guides—and Ravi—an IT professional from Sri Lanka who flees his country after a major trauma. The novel "illuminates travel, work and modern dreams in this brilliant evocation of the way we live now." Owen Richardson, in his review of the novel in ''The Monthly'' described it as "...a big, ambitious novel of Sydney and the world, globalisation and divided identities. It is everywhere full of intelligence and a vivid sense of individual lives." The novel's title, ''Questions of Travel'', is a homage to a poem of the same name by

Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Awar ...

Awards

* 2012 winner

Western Australian Premier's Book Awards The Western Australian Premier's Book Awards is an annual book award provided by the Government of Western Australia, and managed by the State Library of Western Australia. History and format Annual literary awards were inaugurated by the Wes ...

— Premier's Prize * 2012 winner

— Fiction * 2013 shortlisted

Australian Book Industry Awards The Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) are publishers' and literary awards held by the Australian Publishers Association (APA) annually in Australia since 2001. The awards celebrate "the achievements of authors and publishers in bringing Au ...

(ABIA) — Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year * 2013 winner

ALS Gold Medal The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (ALS Gold Medal) is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the ...

* 2013 shortlisted Indie Book Awards — Fiction * 2013 winner

* 2013 shortlisted

Nita Kibble Literary Awards The Kibble Literary Awards comprise two awards—the Nita B Kibble Literary Award, which recognises the work of an established Australian female writer, and the Dobbie Literary Award, which is for a first published work by a female writer. The Awa ...

— Nita Kibble Literary Award * 2013 winner

Prime Minister's Literary Awards The Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards (PMLA) were announced at the end of 2007 by the incoming First Rudd ministry following the 2007 election. They are administered by the Minister for the Arts.Stella Prize The Stella Prize is an Australian annual literary award established in 2013 for writing by Australian women in all genres, worth $50,000. It was originally proposed by Australian women writers and publishers in 2011, modelled on the UK's Bailey ...

* 2014 shortlisted

Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature The South Australian Literary Awards, until 2024 known as the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, comprise a group of biennially-granted literary awards established in 1986 by the Government of South Australia. Formerly announced during A ...

— Award for Fiction * 2014 shortlisted

International Dublin Literary Award The International Dublin Literary Award (), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. It promotes excellence in world literature and is solely ...

* 2014 winner

New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards The New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, also known as the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, were first awarded in 1979. They are among the richest literary awards in Australia. Notable prizes include the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, th ...

— Book of the Year * 2014 joint winner

— Community Relations Commission Award With Andrew Bovell's stage adaptation of ''The Secret River'' * 2014 winner

— Christina Stead Prize for Fiction * 2014 shortlisted

Victorian Premier's Literary Awards The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Government with the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry. As of 2013, it is reportedly Australia's richest literary ...

— The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction

Notes

The novel carried the following dedication: * "In memory of Leah Akie". It also contained the following epigraphs: * "Under cosmopolitanism, if it comes, we shall receive no help from the earth. Trees and meadows and mountains will only be a spectacle...." E.M. Forster ''Howards End''. * "But surely it would have been a pity not to have seen the trees along this road, really exaggerated in their beauty." Elizabeth Bishop ''Questions of Travel''. * "Anywhere! Anywhere!" Charles Baudelaire ''Anywhere Out of the World''.

Reviews

* Frank Moorhouse in ''The Guardian'': "Australia has been waiting for a book which looks into the face of travel and sees it for all the illusions and traps and shallowness and, sometimes, life-changing meaning that it offers or withholds." * Randy Boyagoda in ''The New York Times'': "Like our expectations of travel, as opposed to the realities we usually experience, de Kretser’s novel is a book full of promise that offers many passing wonders and intensities amid a lot of busy-making and slack time."''The New York Times''
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Questions of Travel 2012 Australian novels Miles Franklin Award–winning works Prime Minister's Literary Award-winning works New South Wales Premier's Prize for Fiction Award-winning works Novels set in Sydney Novels set in Sri Lanka ALS Gold Medal–winning works Allen & Unwin books