{"product_id":"last-letter-to-a-reader-gerald-murnane-9781925818840","title":"Last Letter to a Reader","description":"\u003cp\u003eFinal work by internationally acclaimed Australian author Gerald Murnane, reflecting on his career as a writer, and the fifteen books which have led critics to praise him as 'a genius on the level of Beckett'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA book which will appeal equally to Murnane's legion of fans, and to those new to his work, attracted by his reputation as a truly original Australian writer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the first days of spring in his eighty-second year, Gerald Murnane began a project which would round off his career as a writer  he would read all of his books in turn and prepare a report on each. His original intention was to lodge the reports in two of his legendary archives, the Chronological Archive, which documents his life as a whole, and the Literary Archive, which is devoted to everything he has written. But as the reports grew, they themselves took on the form of a book, Last Letter to a Reader.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe essays on each of his works travel through the capacious territory Murnane refers to as his mind: they dwell on the circumstances which gave rise to the writing, images, associations, reflections on the theory of fiction, and memories of a deeply personal kind. The final essay is on Last Letter to a Reader itself: it considers the elation and exhilaration which accompany the act of writing, and offers a moving ending to what must surely be his last work as death approaches. 'Help me, dear one, to endure patiently my going back to my own sort of heaven.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'No living Australian writer, not even Les Murray, has higher claims to permanence or a richer sense of distinction' - Sydney Morning Herald\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'The emotional conviction...is so intense, the somber lyricism so moving, the intelligence behind the chiseled sentences so undeniable, that we suspend all disbelief.' - J.M. Coetzee\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gerald Murnane","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":43174422118643,"sku":"9781925818840","price":26.95,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0634\/4284\/5939\/files\/9781925818840.jpg?v=1716839884","url":"https:\/\/www.harryhartog.com.au\/products\/last-letter-to-a-reader-gerald-murnane-9781925818840","provider":"Harry Hartog Bookseller","version":"1.0","type":"link"}