Anthony Uhlmann

‘The connection of figures of speech and figures of thought is not just a matter of technique, for Murnane; rather, it is meaning itself.’

When we are faced with a world whose problems all seem ‘wicked’ and intractable, what is it that fiction can do?

‘The strangeness of Macris’s stories are not derived from uncommon states; rather, everyday, mundane events are amplified within selves that are captive to modes of behavior within social formations.’ Anthony Uhlmann on Inexperience and other stories

‘The work is a kind of biography, or at least enters into the space normally inhabited by the biography, yet it does so more or less exclusively through David Attwell’s reading of the J.M. Coetzee archive at the Harry Ransom Center. I say more or less exclusively because, while he pushes it down in the mix, so to speak, he is one of the best informed critics of Coetzee and has comprehensive knowledge of the critical literature that has built around him, and his book is also informed by this. It is further informed by his capacity as a literary critic, because, as well as developing a focus on Coetzee’s life, Attwell offers strong and original readings of the works themselves.’

The reading Coetzee offers of Gerald Murnane is interesting in a number of ways: it not only tells us things that Coetzee sees in Murnane, it tells us that Coetzee considers Murnane’s work to be important, and worthy of wider attention. It also tells us that Coetzee sees things in Murnane that concern him, in every sense of the word concern.

Anthony Uhlmann has long been interested in the philosophical function of literature – not only its capacity to contain philosophical discussion, but the formal unfolding of the literary work itself as a philosophical act. St Antony in His Desert, Uhlmann’s first foray into fiction, is an unapologetically cerebral book, incorporating a key debate in the early twentieth-century clash between philosophy and physics.’