Description
The first title in our new Bonfire Monograph Series: Landscape Written in His Face: People, Places Ideas in the Life and Work of Christopher Koch by Jamie Grant, is the first extended study of the doggedly classical novelist Christopher Koch to be published since his death in 2013.
Averaging one novel every biblical seven years, Christopher Koch was a painstaking writer committed to clarity. Undoubtedly the high point of his career was the adaptation of his third novel The Year of Living Dangerously into a film of the same name, directed by Peter Weir and starring Mel Gibson. Koch wrote several other ambitious novels, a travelogue of Ireland, critical essays and poetry. He was a born Tasmanian and much of his work deals with the obsessions of ancestry common to that state, particularly the Irish political prisoner experience in Van Diemen’s Land. Koch twice won what used to be Australia’s most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin, alongside other honours and prizes. But he was delighted most by fan letters from people not normally these days associated with high literature: bricklayers, nurses, posties and the like loved his thrilling, deep, high-minded stories that never condescended or deliberately obfuscated.
Unlike most academic studies, Landscape Written In His Face is written from a perspective of love and admiration. Grant is a veteran Australian poet and publisher who was Koch’s collaborator, proofreader and above all, his friend. Each book Koch published is given its own chapter and alongside the textual analysis, are illustrative details of the triumphs and foibles of Koch himself and a cast of supporting characters, including Les Murray, Robert Gray, Geoffrey Lehmann, Grant himself and a host of publishers, agents, critics and readers. Landscape Written in His Face is the perfect introduction to Koch for those who have not read him, a deeper look for those who have and a record of an Australian publishing milieu fast fading from sight.
About the Author: Jamie Grant is a veteran poet, editor, anthologist and publisher. His many books of poetry include Skywriting (1989), Mysteries (1993) and Hallucination: Twenty First Century Poems (2022). His poetry has been described by Les Murray as being of “scrupulous craftsmanship and unlinking intelligence, poems which pay acute attention to the contours of experience.”
Ships: May 7th, 2026
Extent: 94pp
ISBN: 9781764219037
RRP: $22.99
Cover: “Double-Humped Mount Direction, Tasmania” by Emily Grant