Richard Flanagan

Richard Flanagan was born in Longford, Tasmania, in 1961, and grew up in the remote mining town of Rosebery. Descended from Irish convicts, his father survived the Burma Death Railway. He earned a Bachelor of Arts with First-Class Honours from the University of Tasmania and received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he obtained a Master of Letters in History. Before turning to fiction, he wrote non-fiction works and directed films. Flanagan debuted with Death of a River Guide (1994) and has written acclaimed novels including The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997) and Gould's Book of Fish (2001, Commonwealth Writers' Prize). He achieved international acclaim with The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013), about an Australian prisoner of war on the Burma railway who also won the 2014 Man Booker Prize. His most recent novel, Question 7 (2023), won the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize. He lives in Hobart.