One of Australia’s preeminent novelists, Richard Flanagan, will be stopping in Greenwood today for a reception at Turnrow Books.
Flanagan will also sign copies of his latest novel, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” during the 5 p.m. reception at the Howard Street bookshop.
The novel, Flanagan’s sixth, details the agonizing and harrowing experience of Allied prisoners of war forced by the Japanese during World War II to toil on the so-called Burma Death Railway, a stretch of track connecting Thailand to Burma. The brutal conditions surrounding the railroad’s construction were perhaps most famously depicted in the 1957 film “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”
For Flanagan, the novel’s subject matter is particularly close to home. The novelist’s father, who died last year at the age of 98, spent part of the war in Japanese captivity and was forced to work on the railway in Thailand.
“The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” published in the United States earlier this summer, has received widespread critical acclaim and is one of 13 English-language books to be long-listed for the prestigious 2014 international Man Booker Prize. In a review, The Seattle Times called the novel “a moving and necessary work of devastating humanity and lasting significance.”
Flanagan reportedly wrote four versions of the novel following extensive interviews with his aging father and after lengthy research trips to Thailand, as well as Japan, where the novelist interviewed several of his father’s surviving captors.
Jamie Kornegay, proprietor of Turnrow Books, said Flanagan’s latest novel was “terrific” and that he was thrilled to welcome the author back to Greenwood. Flanagan previously visited the bookstore in 2007.
Kornegay said he first met Flanagan while working at Square Books in Oxford, where the Australian author would occasionally hold readings.
“He’s actually been coming to Mississippi for years,” Kornegay said. “He’s a big fan of William Faulkner and his style is very robust like Faulkner’s.”
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
