Question 7

Richard Flanagan (1961- ) is an award-winning Australian writer. The memoir passages in Question 7 are written from Flanagan’s first-person point of view and describe details of his life growing up in Tasmania, his near-death experience at age 21 in a kayaking accident, his family history, and his research into his father’s experiences as a POW in Japan. Flanagan’s critically acclaimed debut novel, Death of a River Guide (1994), was in part inspired by his kayak accident at 21. His Booker Prize-winning 2013 novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North tells the story of a Tasmanian man who was taken as a prisoner of war in Japan, like Flanagan’s father. Throughout Question 7, Flanagan reflects on The Nature of Writing—how he fictionalized these stories and where they fell short. For instance, about Death of a River Guide, he writes, “Though I tried to be honest, it was still happening and so it was dishonest” (99). Now a more mature writer, Flanagan reprises these stories in creative non-fiction form in an effort to tell them more honestly.

Flanagan uses the factual basis of events as a jumping-off point for emotional reflections that are purely