Chinese Postman

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

Abraham Quin is in his mid-seventies, a migrant, thrice-divorced, a one-time postman and professor, a writer now living alone in the Adelaide Hills. In The Chinese Postman he reflects on his life with what he calls 'the mannered and meditative inaction of age', offering up memories and anxieties, obsessions and opinions, his thoughts on solitude, writing, friendship and time. He ranges widely, with curiosity and feeling, digressing and changing direction as suits his experience, and his role as a collector of fragments and a surveyor of ruins. He becomes increasingly engaged in an epistolary correspondence with Iryna Zarebina, a woman seeking refuge from the war in Ukraine. As the correspondence opens him to others, the elaboration of his memories tempers his melancholy with a playful enjoyment in the richness of language, and a renewed appreciation of the small events in nature. This understanding of the experience of old age is something new and important in our literature. As Quin comments, 'In Australia, the old made way for the young. It guaranteed a juvenile legacy.'

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9781923106130
Published: October 2024

Number of pages: 262
Width: 148 mm
Height: 210 mm
Depth: not specified

Publisher: Giramondo Publishing Co