Întrebarea 7

Richard Flanagan explores how past events and other people's stories shape a life. He also asks how the stories we tell ourselves affect us. The book blends memoir, history, dreams and thoughts on cause and effect. It speaks to readers drawn to family memory and its links with history.

Flanagan connects H. G. Wells's affair with Rebecca West to nuclear physics in the 1930s. He then turns to the bombing of Hiroshima. His father was doing forced labour in a nearby camp at the time. These threads lead to a crisis in Flanagan's own youth. Trapped in a wild river, he did not know whether he would survive.

The book reflects on his parents, Tasmania and the people who live there. It examines Tasmania's and Japan's pasts, alongside his own. Its themes include colonial rule, atrocities, nature and what one generation leaves the next. It also includes an account of Oxford in the 1980s.

Flanagan was born in Tasmania in 1961. His novels have won many awards and appeared in 42 countries. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2014. This edition belongs to the Folio series. Petru Iamandi translated the English original, Question 7.