Richard Flanagan was born in 1961 in Tasmania. He left school at 16, later winning a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, where he took a Master of Letters degree. He later worked as a labourer and river guide.
He wrote four history books before turning to fiction writing, and has since written several novels, including: Death of a River Guide (1997), the tale of Aljaz Cosini, river guide, who lies drowning, reliving his life and the lives of his family and forebears; The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1998), which tells the story of Slovenian immigrants; Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish (2002), winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book); The Unknown Terrorist (2006); Wanting (2008), which is set in Tasmania and England in the early nineteenth century and has won several awards, including the 2011 Tasmania Book Prize; and The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013). This last book tells the story of Dorrigo Evans, a flawed war hero and survivor of the Death Railway in Burma, present day Myanmar. It won the 2014 Man Booker Prize. Richard Flanagan wrote and directed the film version of The Sound of One Hand Clapping, which was released in 1998, and world premiered at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival, where it was nominated for Golden Bear for Best film. He also co-wrote the script for the film Australia, which premiered in 2008.
Richard Flanagan has also written many essays and works of non-fiction, a collection of which was published as And What Do You Do, Mr Gable? in 2011.
