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The
2007 Award
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The Spruiker's Tale by Catherine Rey
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Nominated by:
Publisher
of Nominated Edition
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| the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors |
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ABOUT
THE BOOK
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| In
a run-down shack in a godforsaken town on the edge of the Gibson Desert
an old circus family has come to rest. Tarcisius the 100 year-old father,
once ringmaster of the Queen Pigmy Circus, lies dying on the verandah. The
vindictive matriarch Magnolita Rosaria, famous in her youth as Soto the
Flying Lady, and now so fat she cannot walk, rules their three sons. The
oldest is a soldier, an arsonist and murderer, the second a hell-fire preacher,
a lecher and a thief. The third has a daughter, Trinity, who inherits Magnolita
Rosaria's skills as an acrobat and sets the circus world alight. Her grandmother's
hatred knows no bounds... With this baroque tale of family cruelty and revenge, bred in the circus ring, and told by a one-eyed spruiker with a parrot perched on his head, Catherine Rey appears on the Australian scene fully formed as an author, with a voice that is rich, extravagant, dark, and compelling in its intensity. Catherine Rey lives in Perth, but The Spruiker's Tale was originally written in French and published in Paris, where it received glowing reviews, and was shortlisted for the Prix Femina and the Prix Renaudot. It has been translated into English by Andrew Riemer, author of the award-winning memoir Inside Outside, and chief book reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald. |
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
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Catherine
Rey was born and brought up in France, in the care of her grandparents,
who migrated to Western Australia in 1912, and returned to France in 1928
when her father was a small boy. Her childhood imagination was formed
by two landscapes, that of the Charente-Maritime district in which her
grandparents finally settled, and that of Perth and the Swan Valley, as
it existed in their stories. Rey herself came to live in Perth in 1997,
and has written three of her six novels there. 'The Spruiker's Tale' is
the most recent of these. Published in Paris in 2003 under the title 'Ce
que racontait Jones', it was awarded the 'Prix de la Société
des gens et lettres', and shortlisted for both the 'Prix Femina' and the
'Prix Renaudot'. About
the Translator |
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