About the author:
Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer.
She is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which was widely praised by writers such as AS Byatt, Hilary Mantel and William Boyd and won a swag of awards, including: the 2008 NSW Premier's Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal. The Lost Dog was also shortlisted for the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the Western Australian Premier's Australia-Asia Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Asia-Pacific Region) and Orange Prize's Shadow Youth Panel. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Questions of Travel was the winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Award, the Prime Ministers Literary Award for Fiction and the Western Australian Premier's Prize and Award for Fiction.

About the book:
Original publication: Allen & Unwin Australia, 83 Alexander Street, Crows Nest, NSW 2065, Australia. 
ISBN: B09862DHPF 
2021 
307 pages
Sold licenses: 
UK: Allen & Unwin 
USA: Catapult 
Israel: Xargol

Abstract:
Michelle de Kretser’s slyly intelligent sixth novel pairs two first-person narratives. One takes place in a dystopian near-future Melbourne, where Lyle, an immigrant father of two, is employed by a sinister government department in near-future Australia to write “evaluations” nominating fellow migrants for arrest and repatriation. 
The other half of the book is set in 1981 and follows Lili, a 22-year-old Australian working as a teaching assistant in France. Lili's family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a teenager. Now, in the 1980s, she's teaching in the south of France. She makes friends, observes the treatment handed out to North African immigrants and is creeped out by her downstairs neighbour. 
It’s typical of De Kretser’s sophistication that she leaves the link between these narratives entirely up to you – even the order in which they are to be read is left to the individual reader, given the book’s reversible design.
Michelle de Kretser's electrifying take on scary monsters turns the novel upside down - just as migration has upended her characters' lives.
Three scary monsters - racism, misogyny and ageism - roam through this mesmerising novel. With this scathingly funny and profound book, Michelle de Kretser has made something thrilling and new.

Excerpt: 
That was how Alan became part of our family. Back when Chanel worked at the Other Corporation, Erin was her manager and a reliable guide on how things were done here. Erin said that it was quite okay to feed Alan in the morning and leave him outside to amuse himself in the yard. ‘It’s called Set and Forget,’ she told Chanel. Alan didn’t bark much as we headed off for the day, leaving him alone – he was used to that way of life.
Then Ivy joined our household. Ivy is my mother, and she had Alan inside all the time. I tried to explain about Set and Forget. The news was on, and a government hatespokesperson was telling us why it was necessary to detail asylum-seeking queue-jumpers on an offshore island forever. Ivy said, ‘I suppose that’s called Set and Forget too.’
But I’ve strayed from the subject of Alan’s last day. My mind has started showing this tendency to play tricks. There was that time a bulb went, and when I fetched a new one from the cupboard it was labelled ‘Worm White’. How strange, I thought, before realising that it was ‘Warm White’. It must be overwork – I stay later and later at the Department these days.
Naturally we said nothing to Mel and Sydney about what we had to do. My flexi-day came, a winter morning with a vinyl sheen. The children were at school, so that left Ivy. I found her sitting on the sunny side of the patio with her face turned to the sky. She had a tube of Factor 73 beside her and Alan on her lap.

Translator Anke Caroline Burger presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.

For further information please contact:

Anke Caroline Burger
Literature Translator
On this website
Germany: Schmollerplatz 29, 12435 Berlin,
Mobil: 0049-179-7008527
Canada: 5-7081 Rue Waverly, Montreal, QC H2S 3J1,
Tel: 001-514-867-3344
E-Mail: [email protected]
Internet: www.ankeburger.de

Please note: Translation Fund for Literature by the Australian Government
International publishers may apply for a contribution towards the translation of Australian works by living authors of creative writing such as fiction, poetry, writing for children and young people, graphic novels, and narrative non-fiction (defined as autobiography, biography, essays, histories, literary criticism, or analytical prose).  The majority of funding must be used to pay the rights holder and translator.

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