Homesickness (novel)
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| Author | Murray Bail |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
Publication date | 1980 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 371 pp. |
| ISBN | 0333298969 |
| Preceded by | - |
| Followed by | Holden's Performance |
Homesickness (1980) is a novel by Australian writer Murray Bail. It was originally published by Macmillan in Australia in 1980.[1]
It won both The Age Book of the Year Award and The Age Book of the Year Fiction Awards in 1980. It shared both awards with David Ireland's novel A Woman of the Future.
Synopsis[edit]
The novel follows a group of thirteen Australian travelling together on a package tour that takes in Africa, England, Ecuador, New York and Moscow.
Awards[edit]
- co-winner The Age Book of the Year Awards — Fiction 1980[2]
- co-winner The Age Book of the Year 1980[3]
Critical reception[edit]
Suzanne Edgar, writing in The Canberra Times noted: "The group of Australians abroad, their attitudes and tastes are satirised and sent up from the superior viewpoint of the artist-observer: blind Kaddok is always taking photographs, while socially withdrawn Shiela sends hundreds of post-cards. Each tourist is tabbed by one or two stereotyped attributes that do no more than narrowly differentiate the one from the other...Bail disdains the dun-coloured realism of much Australian writing but his own prose, while certainly unrealistic, is not so psychedelic."[4]
Publication history[edit]
After its original publication in 1980 in Australia by publisher Macmillan,[5] the novel was later published as follows:
- Penguin Books, Australia, 1981
- Faber and Faber, UK 1986
- Text Publishing, Australia, 1998 and 2012
- Farrar Straus & Giroux, USA, 1999
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "Austlit — Homesickness by Murray Bail (Macmillan) 1980". Austlit. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
- ^ "Austlit — Age Book of the Year — Imaginative Writing Prize 1980". Austlit. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
- ^ "Austlit — The Age Book of the Year Award 1980". Austlit. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
- ^ ""Limitations of Content"". The Canberra Times, 11 October 1980, p23. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
- ^ "Homesickness (Macmillan)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 10 October 2023.