Description: The first novel from one of Australia's finest writers
Brief description: Robert Dessaix is a writer of fiction, autobiography and the occasional essay. From 1985 to 1995, after teaching Russian language and literature for many years at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales, he presented the weekly Books and Writing program on ABC Radio National. In more recent years he has also presented radio series on Australian public intellectuals and great travellers in history, as well as regular programs on language. His best-known books, all translated into several European languages, are his autobiography A Mother's Disgrace; the novels Night Letters and Corfu; a collection of essays and short stories (and so forth); and the travel memoirs Twilight of Love and Arabesques. In 2012 he published the collection of originally spoken pieces As I Was Saying, in 2014 the meditation What Days Are For and, in 2017, a guide to work and play in the twenty-first century, The Pleasures of Leisure. A full-time writer since 1995, Robert lives in Hobart, Tasmania.
Review Quotes:
'Dessaix writes with great elegance, with passion, compassion and sly wit. Literally, a wonderful book.' John Banville
'An absolutely unique book: intelligent, funny, rich, tender at the right moments, a plum pudding of stories, observations and discoveries.' Alberto Manguel
'Night Letters is exhilarating. The goads, the teasing, the question marks fired up into the atmosphere make any passive reading of it quite impossible.' The Sydney Morning Herald