Flames

‘A strange and joyous marvel.’ – Richard Flanagan
‘Ambitious storytelling from a stunning new Australian voice. Flames is constantly surprising—I never knew where the story would take me next. This book has a lovely sense of wonder for the world. It’s brimming with heart and compassion.’ – Rohan Wilson
‘Robbie Arnott is a vivid and bold new voice in Australian fiction.’ – Danielle Wood
‘Visionary, vivid, full of audacious transformations: there’s a marvellous energy to this writing that returns the world to us aflame. A brilliant and wholly original debut.’ – Gail Jones
‘Arnott skilfully switches between different voices and genres in a trick reminiscent of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. The range he displays is impressive, swinging from fable to gothic horror to hardboiled detective story.’ * Books+Publishing *
‘Flames is an exuberantly creative and confident debut. This is a story that sparks with invention…Invigorating, strange and occasionally brutal.’ * Australian Book Review *
‘This is the kind of book that you’ll be able to read a second, third, even fourth time, and it will still never reveal all its secrets. Composed with meticulous attention to detail, and a mastery of form rarely found in a debut novel, Flames will keep you stewing long after you’ve finished reading it.’ * Readings *
‘A surprising story with a definite feminist edge…the novel’s playfulness and poetry make for a fresh and entertaining read.’ * Saturday Paper *
‘Arnott confidently borrows from the genres of crime fiction, thriller, romance, comedy, eco-literature, and magical realism, throws them in the air, and lets the pieces land to form a flaming new world.’ * Sydney Morning Herald *
‘This is a startlingly good first novel, stylistically adventurous, gorgeous in its descriptions and with a compelling narrative that should find a wide readership.’ * Australian *
‘A gloriously audacious book. It runs astonishing risks and takes on the biggest emotions…It bowled me sideways.’ * New Zealand Herald *
‘Unique and memorable…Extraordinary energy…A rich and memorable picture with prose of an exceptionally high quality. You won’t read another Australian literary novel like this anytime soon.’ * Kill Your Darlings *
‘[A] novel you will want to read more than once, not so much to plumb its depths as to savour its wild variety of styles and voices, to revel in its breathtaking descriptions of Tasmanian wilderness and to grasp its intricate structure…There is no doubt that a poetically wild and wicked imagination is at work here. More please!’ * SA Weekend *
‘It’s not hard to see where the hype came from. This is an assured, funny and highly imaginative work. Flames is strange from the first, arresting sentence.’ * Stuff NZ *
‘Highly innovative…[A] finely built and realised first novel.’ * Otago Daily Times *
‘Flames is brilliant…Enjoy it for its prose poetry, its vivid imagery, its brilliant turns of phrase on nearly every page.’ * NZ Listener *
‘Delightful. He jumps playfully between different writing styles in every chapter…[An] enchanting story that also captures something very real about Tasmanian life.’ * Guardian *
‘An engrossing narrative of mystery and escape that treats the reader to bravura runs of writing, especially around the elements of water and fire…You never quite know which direction the story will take off in as it creates a new kind of fairytale for our fire-prone landscape.’ – Judges’ report * Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist 2019 *

Robbie Arnott’s acclaimed debut, Flames (2018), won a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist award and a Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prize, and was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, a New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, a Queensland Literary Award, the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the Not the Booker Prize.

His follow-up, The Rain Heron (2020), won the Age Book of the Year award, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the ALS Gold Medal, the Voss Literary Prize and an Adelaide Festival Award.

He lives in Hobart.

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