Richard Flanagan (Ρίτσαρντ Φλάναγκαν)

flanagan,-richard

Richard Miller Flanagan (born 1961) is an Australian writer, "considered by many to be the finest Australian novelist of his generation", according to The Economist. Each of his novels has attracted major praise and received numerous awards and honours. He also has written and directed feature films. He won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

The New York Review of Books described Flanagan as "among the most versatile writers in the English language. That he is also an environmental activist and the author of numerous influential works of nonfiction makes his achievement all the more remarkable."

Flanagan was born in Longford, Tasmania, in 1961, the fifth of six children. He is descended from Irish convicts transported during the Great Famine in Ireland to Van Diemen's Land. Flanagan's father was a survivor of the Burma Death Railway and one of his three brothers is Australian rules football journalist Martin Flanagan.

Flanagan was born with a severe hearing loss, which was not corrected until he was 6 years old. He grew up in the remote mining town of Rosebery on Tasmania's western coast.

Flanagan left school at the age of 16 but returned to study at the University of Tasmania, where he was president of the Tasmania University Union in 1983. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with First-Class Honours. The following year, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship at Worcester College, Oxford, where he was admitted to the degree of Master of Letters in History.