Question 7
English
By (author): Richard Flanagan
'A work of non-fiction . . . but it has all the complexity of emotional heft of a great novel . . . Question 7 sets the high-water mark for what the genre [of memoir] can be' Sunday Times
'Theres so much . . . in Flanagans beautiful, unclassifiable novel-cum-memoir . . . That it is a masterpiece is without question' Observer
This is a book about the choices we make and the chain reaction that follows . . .
By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca Wests affair, through 1930s nuclear physics, to Flanagans father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river, not knowing if he is to live or to die.
Flanagan has created a love song to his island home and his parents and the terrible past that delivered him to that place.
Through a hypnotic melding of dream, history, science, and memory, Question 7 shows how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves.
I was fascinated, troubled, and enchanted by this strange and extraordinary work... I can think of nothing else quite like it Sarah Perry
Mighty in its rage and tenderness: his most momentous book yet Laura Cumming
'Spectacular . . . It seems to me a book that will have an overwhelming effect on readers. It certainly did on me' Colm Tóibín
'Question 7 could be Richard Flanagans greatest yet' Guardian
Fiercely alive and genuinely hard to put down Mark Haddon
Richard Flanagan, Winner of the Booker Prize 2014