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The one who stayed behind
New Zealand Listener
|February 10-16 2024
Kiwi expat delivers a multilayered, literary-minded debut novel inspired by an Australian icon.
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Towards the end of My Brilliant Sister, a work abounding with literary allusions, reference is made to Jenny Erpenbeck's The End of Days, a novel in five books.
Amy Brown may well have found inspiration in Erpenbeck for the form she takes in this, her complex and multilayered debut. Her major inspiration, though, is Miles Franklin, author of My Brilliant Career, first published in 1901 and revived by the 1979 film starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill. Franklin is an author held as close to Australian hearts as Katherine Mansfield is to ours.
This story is from the February 10-16 2024 edition of New Zealand Listener.
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