Sri Lankan-born Australian writer, linguist and editor Michelle de Kretser is drawn to periods of historical turmoil because "they oblige people to make choices." Her first novel, The Rose Grower (1999), combined romance and rose-growing in France during the French Revolution. This was followed by The Hamilton Case (2004), a novel influenced by the colonial melodrama of Maugham and the detective stories of Christie. Set in her native Ceylon during the period before independence in 1948, it is described as a "masterpiece of a mystery … evoking the glittering excesses of colonial life … and the tropical fecundity of Ceylon with equally irresistible power". (Time Magazine) The novel explores the damage wrought by colonialism and challenges the stereotype of the exotic ‘other’. As in her earlier work, lives are played out in the shadow of momentous historical events. The Hamilton Case won the 2005 Tasmania Pacifc Fiction Prize and the 2004 Asia-Pacific region Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

 

 

Also appears in:

The New Russian Doll

Wed 15 Mar, 12.30pm

Embassy Theatre

Sun 19 Mar, 2.45pm

Embassy Theatre

 

Concession Pass to 15 Writers Upfront sessions of your choice: $150 [FR $140]

 

17 Mar, 11:00am