Wish: Text Classics

Description

'I'm not deaf, but I've always felt more at home in Sign. Both my parents are deaf. Deaf as posts. Deaf as adders, deaf as beetles. And proud as peacocks, Deaf Pride long before there was a word, or a sign, for it. I learnt to speak with my hands from birth; there was no other way of reaching my parents...' J.J. is back living at home in Adelaide, unemployed and drifting after a messy divorce. Then he is offered a job teaching Sign to Eliza. His new pupil is smart, sensitive, attractive - and a gorilla recently liberated from a medical research laboratory by animal rights activists. First published in 1995, the third novel by the acclaimed writer Peter Goldsworthy is unique in Australian literature- a dazzling, moving story about scientific experimentation and ethics, language and love. This edition comes with a new introduction by James Bradley.

Peter Goldsworthy grew up in various Australian country towns, finishing his schooling in Darwin. After graduating in medicine from the University of Adelaide in 1974 he worked for several years in alcohol and drug rehabilitation, but since then has divided his working time between general practice and writing. He has won major literary awards across a range of genres- poetry, short story, novels, theatre, and opera libretti. Goldsworthy's novels have sold over 400 000 copies in Australia alone, and have been translated into European and Asian languages. His novels have three times been shortlisted for the NSW Christina Stead Fiction Prize, and twice for the Miles Franklin Award. Three Dog Night won the 2004 FAW Christina Stead Award, and was longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC prize. In 2003, his first novel, Maestro, was voted by members of the Australian Society of Authors as one of the Top 40 Australian books of all time. Five of his novels are currently being adapted for the screen, and two more - Wish and Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam - for the stage. His most recent novel, Everything I Knew, published in 2008, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Fiction Prize. A new collection of short stories, Gravel, was published in 2010. petergoldsworthy.com

'[Goldsworthy's] greatest achievement...Brave, brilliant, as intellectually challenging as it is playful, it is testament to a restless and unpredictable imagination.' -- James Bradley 'Stylish, imaginative, poignant, and hugely unsettling.' Australian 'A deeply satisfying book...represents a new achievement in his fiction...Read it. You won't find another novel like it.' Adelaide Review