Fiction
Act of Grace
by Anna Krien
Description
An electrifying story of fear and sacrifice, and what people will do to outrun the shadows.
Iraqi aspiring pianist Nasim falls from favour with Saddam Hussein and his psychopathic son, triggering a perilous search for safety. In Australia, decades later, Gerry is in fear of his tyrannical father, Toohey, who has returned from the Iraq War bearing the physical and psychological scars of conflict. Meanwhile, Robbie is dealing with her own father’s dementia when the past enters the present.
These characters’ worlds intertwine in a brilliant narrative of guilt and reckoning, trauma and survival. Crossing the frontiers of war, protest and reconciliation, Act of Grace is a meditation on inheritance: the damage that one generation passes on to the next, and the potential for transformation.
More Information
Rights Information
Rights held: World
Rights sold: UK/Comm ex ANZ (Serpent's Tail); ANZ audio (Wavesound)
Marketing Information
- Shortlisted, 2020 Queensland Literary Awards
- Shortlisted, 2019 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards
- Longlisted, 2019 Indie Book Awards
- Longlisted, 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award
Endorsements
"Act of Grace is bold, brilliant and breathtakingly humane. Anna Krien makes riveting the sweep of history and the lived price of war; at the same time she reveals, with great insight, the intimacies of daily love and tiny, splintering acts of violence in families. She is both wide-angle and close-up, and there is redemption in every line. Anna Krien is the real deal – a novelist for our times." —Anna Funder, author of All That I Am
"Masterful – a far-reaching tapestry of a novel. Nuanced and whip-smart, this is a work of profound empathy – a book of and for our times. As Act of Grace unfolds with precise muscularity, Krien’s inhabitation of each character approaches the divine." —Peggy Frew, author of The Islands and Hope Farm
"Act of Grace is a work of stunning virtuosity. Krien has taken a huge leap of creative faith, and from the very first page to the last I was ready to follow her anywhere." —Ceridwen Dovey, author of In the Garden of the Fugitivesand Only the Animals
Reviews
"Krien’s first novel is a high-wire performance. With its vast historical rigging, epic scope, ethical complexity, and kaleidoscopic view, Act of Grace is enormously ambitious. The reader watches, breath held, as the novel unspools, but Krien’s step is sure, and she does not fall." —Australian Book Review
"Through the darkness, Act of Grace signals hope: Krien invites us to seize the power we each have to change ourselves and to consciously and positively shape the world we live in." —The Saturday Paper
"A fascinating, unflinching meditation on contemporary Australian life from the perspective of a marginalised and often traumatised cast of characters ... This is an ambitious novel by a very fine writer." —Jo Case
"A powerful meditation on the ways that compensation may be offered, and how accepting them is never simple. 4.5 STARS" —ArtsHub
"None of Krien’s characters are above criticism but they are all vulnerable, open to change and a product of their circumstances. It’s what makes the book so compelling." —The Guardian
"Act of Grace is a thrilling read. It’s a novel that delves into the deepest questions of what it is to be human and expertly weaves hope, love, life and sorrow together in an epic of contemporary life." —Westerly
"A thought-provoking novel of great literary quality." —Readings
"It’s startling to read a first novel that gathers so much and travels so far, yet flows so effortlessly. Krien writes brilliantly." —The Guardian
"In placing these complicated, vulnerable characters together, Krien crosses cultural and generational divides to dazzling effect." —The Times
Author Biography
ANNA KRIEN is the author of the award-winning Night Games and Into the Woods, as well as two Quarterly Essays, Us and Them and The Long Goodbye. Anna’s writing has been published in The Monthly, The Age, Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Stories and The Big Issue. In 2014 she won the UK William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, and 2018 she received a Sidney Myer Fellowship. Act of Grace, her debut novel, is out now.
Black Inc.
An imprint of Schwartz Books, Black Inc. is a leading independent Australian book publisher of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. We are passionate about diversity, inclusivity, social justice, new ideas and writing which informs, entertains and inspires. We are fiercely independent, but also strongly commercial. We publish local and international commercial mass-market titles under our Nero imprint, and children’s books under Piccolo Nero. Our La Trobe University Press imprint brings leading scholars and exports to deliver books of high intellectual quality, substance and originality. Schwartz Books also publishes the issue-defining journals Quarterly Essay and Australian Foreign Affairs.
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Black Inc.
- Publication Date October 2019
- Orginal LanguageEnglish
- ISBN/Identifier 9781863959551
- Publication Country or regionAustralia
- FormatPaperback
- Pages336
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Copyright Year2019
- Dimensions234 x 153 mm
Thank you for proceeding with this offer.
Black Inc. has chosen to review this offer before it proceeds.
You will receive an email update that will bring you back to complete the process.
You can also check the status in the My Offers area
Black Inc. has chosen to review this offer before it proceeds.
You will receive an email update that will bring you back to complete the process.
You can also check the status in the My Offers area
Please wait while the payment is being prepared.
Do not close this window.
(c) Copyright 2024 - Frankfurt Rights. All Right Reserved