Interview with Richard Flanagan, Man Booker 2014 winner

Raleigh Addington
Raleigh Addington
editor at Chartwell Speakers

Australian author Richard Flanagan has won the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for his wartime novel “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”. Presented with his prize by The Duchess of Cornwall, Flanagan’s novel is set during the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway in World War Two.

AC Grayling, renowned British philosopher and chair of the judges, said the judges reached a majority decision after three hours of debate. “The two great themes from the origin of literature are love and war: this is a magnificent novel of love and war,” he said. “Written in prose of extraordinary elegance and force, it bridges East and West, past and present, with a story of guilt and heroism.”

Grayling also hailed the “profoundly intelligent humanity”; the book was inspired by the author’s father, a Japanese prisoner of war who survived the Death Railway, but died aged 98 on the day the novel was finished.

Click here to read an interview with the author.

For more information, or to book AC Grayling as a keynote speaker for your conference or event, please contact Leo von Bülow-Quirk at [email protected] or call 0044 (0) 20 7792 8000.

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