The 2014 Man Booker Prize for fiction was awarded at a ceremony on 14 October 2014. Until 2014, only novels written in English and from authors in the Commonwealth, including the UK, the Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe were eligible for consideration; however from 2014 rules were changed to extend eligibility to any novel written in English. It is therefore the first time in the award's history that authors from the United States of America have been included.
21-521: Richard Miller Flanagan (born 1961) is an Australian writer, who has also worked as a film director and screenwriter. He won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North . Flanagan was described by the Washington Post as "one of our greatest living novelists". "[C]onsidered by many to be the finest Australian novelist of his generation", according to The Economist ,
42-438: Is based on the life of William Buelow Gould , a convict artist, and tells the tale of his love affair with a young black woman in 1828. It won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers' Prize . Flanagan described these early novels as 'soul histories'. The Unknown Terrorist (2006), was described by The New York Times as "stunning ... a brilliant meditation upon the post-9/11 world". Wanting (2008) tells two parallel stories: about
63-604: Is enigmatic and mesmerizing" while the New York Review of Books called it a "tour-de-force". The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (2020) about a woman caring for her dying mother during Australia's Black Summer of climate change induced wildfires, was described in a review for The Sydney Morning Herald as "a revelation and a triumph . . . astonishing". Robert Dixon's (ed.) Richard Flanagan: Critical Essays (2018) offers different perspectives on Flanagan's writing, while Joyce Carol Oates has written an overview of his novels for
84-547: The New York Review of Books . Flanagan has written on literature, the environment, art and politics for the Australian and international press including Le Monde , The Daily Telegraph (London), Suddeutsche Zeitung , The Monthly , The New York Times , and the New Yorker . Some of his writings have proved controversial. "The Selling-out of Tasmania", published after the death of former premier Jim Bacon in 2004,
105-582: The 2003 Archibald Prize . A rapid on the Franklin River , Flanagan's Surprise, is named after him. He was made an Honorary Citizen of Oxford, Mississippi, the home town of William Faulkner, in 2014. Flanagan lives in Hobart, Tasmania with his Slovenian-born wife Majda (nÊe Smolej) and has three daughters, Rosie, Jean and Eliza. His life was the subject of a BAFTA award-winning BBC documentary, Life After Death . 2014 Man Booker Prize The panel of judges
126-411: The Deep North (2013), about a Tasmanian doctor who becomes a Japanese prisoner of war, won the 2014 Man Booker Prize . First Person (2017), based loosely on his experience early in his writing career ghost-writing the autobiography of John Friedrich. The New Yorker noted "the novel, with its switchbacking recollections and cyclical dialogue, its penetrating scenes of birth and, eventually, death,
147-516: The Deep North . The judges spent three hours deliberating before announcing the winner. Grayling described the historical novel as a "remarkable love story as well as a story about human suffering and comradeship". Tasmanian Premier%27s Literary Prizes The Tasmanian Premier's Literary Prizes are literary prizes that are awarded biennially in four categories by the Tasmanian Government . There are two panels of three judges: one for
168-589: The Deep North is in production, directed by Justin Kurzel ( Snowtown , Macbeth , Nitram ) and starring Jacob Elordi ( Euphoria , Priscilla , Saltburn ). Flanagan is an ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation , to which he donated his $ 40,000 prize money on winning the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Prize in 2014. A painting of Richard Flanagan by artist Geoffrey Dyer won
189-843: The New York Review of Books described Flanagan as "among the most versatile writers in the English language". Flanagan was born in Longford , Tasmania , in 1961, the fifth of six children. He is descended from Irish convicts transported to Van Diemen's Land during the Great Famine in Ireland . Flanagan's father was a survivor of the Burma Death Railway and one of his three brothers is Australian rules football journalist Martin Flanagan . Flanagan
210-636: The Tasmanian Salmon Industry has been credited with lifting 'the veil on the Atlantic salmon industry's environmental and social malfeasances' and igniting popular opposition to the industry. In 2024, his book Question 7 won the GBP 50,000 (AUD 97,000) Baillie Gifford prize for Non-Fiction, making him the first author to win both the Booker and Baillie prizes. However Flanagan declared that he would not accept
231-543: The book prizes, the other for the emerging writers and young writer's fellowship. In September 2021 the Tasmanian Government announced that the awards had been renamed the Tasmanian Literary Awards , would only be open to writers living in Tasmania. The six new categories are: Awarded for the best book with Tasmanian content. This prize, named in honour of well-known Tasmanian writer, Margaret Scott (1934â2005)
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#1732852135072252-497: The building of Gunns' two billion dollar Bell Bay Pulp Mill . Cousins reprinted 50,000 copies of the essay for letterboxing in the electorates of Australia's environment minister and opposition environment spokesperson. Gunns subsequently collapsed with huge debt, its CEO John Gay found guilty of insider trading, and the pulp mill was never built. Flanagan's essay won the 2008 John Curtin Prize for Journalism. A collection of his non-fiction
273-470: The middle of the book's writing and it was published posthumously. Simon Caterson, writing in The Australian , described it as "one of the least reliable but most fascinating memoirs in the annals of Australian publishing". Flanagan's first novel, Death of a River Guide (1994), is the tale of Aljaz Cosini, a river guide, who lies drowning, reliving his life and the lives of his family and forebears. It
294-696: The novelist Charles Dickens in England, and Mathinna, an Aboriginal orphan adopted by Sir John Franklin , the colonial governor of Van Diemen's Land , and his wife, Lady Jane Franklin. As well as being a New Yorker Book of the Year and Observer Book of the Year , it won the Queensland Premier's Prize, the Western Australian Premier's Prize and the Tasmania Book Prize . The Narrow Road to
315-543: The prize money until Baillie Gifford indicate how they will decrease their association with fossil fuel and put more towards renewable energy. The 1998 film of The Sound of One Hand Clapping , written and directed by Flanagan, was nominated for the Golden Bear at that year's Berlin Film Festival . He worked with Baz Luhrmann as a writer on the 2008 film Australia . A major television series of The Narrow Road to
336-495: Was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Worcester College , Oxford , where he earned the degree of Master of Letters in History . Flanagan wrote four non-fiction works before moving to fiction, works that he called "his apprenticeship". One of these was Codename Iago , an autobiography of Australian con man John Friedrich , which Flanagan ghostwrote in six weeks to make money to write his first novel. Friedrich killed himself in
357-538: Was born with severe hearing loss, which was corrected when he was six years old. He grew up in the remote mining town of Rosebery on Tasmania's western coast. Flanagan left school at the age of 16 but returned to study at the University of Tasmania , where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with First-Class Honours . Flanagan was president of the Tasmania University Union in 1983. The following year, he
378-453: Was chaired by A. C. Grayling and comprised Jonathan Bate , Sarah Churchwell , Daniel Glaser , Alastair Niven and Erica Wagner . A longlist of thirteen titles was announced on 23 July 2014. The shortlist of six novels was announced on 9 September 2014. It was composed of: On 14 October, chair judge A. C. Grayling announced that Australian author Richard Flanagan had won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his book The Narrow Road to
399-635: Was critical of the Bacon government's relationship with corporate interests in the state. Premier Paul Lennon declared, "Richard Flanagan and his fictions are not welcome in the new Tasmania". Flanagan's 2007 essay on logging company Gunns, then the biggest hardwood woodchipper in the world, "Gunns. Out of Control" in The Monthly , first published as "Paradise Razed" in The Telegraph (London), inspired Sydney businessman Geoffrey Cousins' high-profile campaign to stop
420-497: Was described by The Times Literary Supplement as "one of the most auspicious debuts in Australian writing". The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997), tells the story of Slovenian immigrants and was a major bestseller, selling more than 150,000 copies in Australia. Flanagan's first two novels, declared Kirkus Reviews , "rank with the finest fiction out of Australia since the heyday of Patrick White ". Gould's Book of Fish (2001)
441-553: Was published as And What Do You Do, Mr Gable? (2011). In 2015 he published Notes on an Exodus , on the Syrian refugee crisis, arising out of visiting refugee camps in Lebanon, Greece, and meeting refugees in Serbia. The book also features sketches made by the noted Australian artist Ben Quilty , who travelled with Flanagan to meet the refugees. His 2021 book Toxic. The Rotting Underbelly of
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