Brian Castro (157 results)

Condition: Good. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting.

Paperback. Condition: Good. After 40 years in Australia, António Castro packs a bag and walks out of his old life forever. The victim of a restlessness he calls "Shanghai Dancing," António seeks to understand the source of his condition in his family's wanderings. Reversing his parents' own migration, António heads back to their native Shanghai, where his world begins to fragment as his ancestry starts to flood into his present, and emissaries of glittering pre-war China, evangelical Liverpool and seventeenth-century Portugal merge into contemporary backdrops across Asia, Europe and Australia. A "fictional autobiography," Shanghai Dancing is a dazzling meditation on identity, language and disorientation that combines photographs and written images in the style of W.G. Sebald. The Age has described the book as "an extraordinary polyglot mix of sources: Portuguese, Chinese, English, Jewish and Catholic, and a mysterious recessive black gene. told in Castro's characteristically baroque prose, dense with its passion for language and serious wordplay." The winner of some of Australia's top literary prizes, Shanghai Dancing has been praised by its judges as "a work of major significance [that] challenges our expectations of storytelling. It is impressive as history, as fiction, as a book which stretches the literary form and which speaks to the universality of the human experience." Shanghai Dancing marks the U.S. debut of a major Australian literary figure.…

Condition: Good. First Paperback Edition. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Condition: Very Good. First Paperback Edition. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Paperback. Condition: Good. Good - Bumped and creased book with tears to the extremities, but not affecting the text block, may have remainder mark or previous owner's name - GOOD PAPERBACK Standard-sized.

paperback. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Reading fragments of his ancestor's journal Lo Yun Shan gives Australian-born Chinese man Seamus O'Young an odd sensation: familiarity. Their lives are quite different-Shan left China for the goldfields in the mid-19th century-but something links them. As Seamus seeks to understand what it is, and what it means, his mind begins to unravel in Brian Castro's astonishing debut.First published in 1983, Birds of Passage was joint winner of The Australian/Vogel National Literary Award the previous year. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Soft cover. Condition: Near Fine. Softcover, 224 pgs. Near fine+.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Street to Street is one of Brian Castro's best books yet, a comic-tragic enactment of the anxieties of the writing life, in which the early twentieth-century Sydney poet Christopher Brennan plays a major role. A legendary figure, with a commanding knowledge of classical and European poetry, Brennan wrote some of the most powerful poems in Australian literature. He died an impoverished alcoholic at the age of sixty-one. Castro's double portrait of the poet and his biographer, the writer-academic Brendan Costa, plays on the disappointment, the guilt, the lack of recognition, which troubles those who live by their imaginations. The novella is the perfect form for Castro's purpose, its compression heightening the wit and energy of his prose, and his remarkable feel for the embarrassments of character.Street to Street has been long listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award Street to Street Street to Street has been long listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Condition: New.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. After 40 years in Australia, Antonio Castro packs a bag and walks out of his old life forever. The victim of a restlessness he calls "Shanghai Dancing," Antonio seeks to understand the source of his condition in his family's wanderings. Reversing his parents' own migration, Antonio heads back to their native Shanghai, where his world begins to fragment as his ancestry starts to flood into his present, and emissaries of glittering pre-war China, evangelical Liverpool and seventeenth-century Portugal merge into contemporary backdrops across Asia, Europe and Australia. A "fictional autobiography," Shanghai Dancing is a dazzling meditation on identity, language and disorientation that combines photographs and written images in the style of W.G. Sebald. The Age has described the book as "an extraordinary polyglot mix of sources: Portuguese, Chinese, English, Jewish and Catholic, and a mysterious recessive black gene. told in Castro's characteristically baroque prose, dense with its passion for language and serious wordplay." The winner of some of Australia's top literary prizes, Shanghai Dancing has been praised by its judges as "a work of major significance [that] challenges our expectations of storytelling. It is impressive as history, as fiction, as a book which stretches the literary form and which speaks to the universality of the human experience." Shanghai Dancing marks the U.S. debut of a major Australian literary figure. Originally published: Artarmon, NSW: Giramondo Pub., 2003. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. …

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Mr You is a Chinese architect in his middle years, professionally successful but scarred by a complex past. His mother was killed during an insurrection in Shanghai, his father died in a house-fire under strange circumstances. A subsequent accident in a railway yard has left him both physically and psychologically damaged.All that was in the past, when he had a country. Now it is after China. Mr You is a Chinese architect in his middle years, professionally successful but scarred by a complex past. His mother was killed during an insurrection in Shanghai, his father died in a house-fire under strange circumstances. A subsequent accident in a railway yard has left him both physically and psychologically damaged. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. 'Brian Castro's fifth novel is perhaps his most complex and certainly his most political. Like all his work it is productively playful, punningly irreverent and deeply concerned with sex and death, fact and fiction, but also more seriously with the redemptive possibilities of art and the existential power of the novel - all in the context of Australia's contested history.' from the Introduction by Katharine England Castro's 5th novel is perhaps his most complex and certainly his most political. Like all his work it is productively playful, punningly irreverent and deeply concerned with sex and death, fact and fiction, but also with the redemptive possibilities of art and the existential power of the novel - all in the context of Australia's contested history. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Paperback. Condition: New. After 40 years in Australia, António Castro packs a bag and walks out of his old life forever. The victim of a restlessness he calls "Shanghai Dancing," António seeks to understand the source of his condition in his family's wanderings. Reversing his parents' own migration, António heads back to their native Shanghai, where his world begins to fragment as his ancestry starts to flood into his present, and emissaries of glittering pre-war China, evangelical Liverpool and seventeenth-century Portugal merge into contemporary backdrops across Asia, Europe and Australia. A "fictional autobiography," Shanghai Dancing is a dazzling meditation on identity, language and disorientation that combines photographs and written images in the style of W.G. Sebald. The Age has described the book as "an extraordinary polyglot mix of sources: Portuguese, Chinese, English, Jewish and Catholic, and a mysterious recessive black gene. told in Castro's characteristically baroque prose, dense with its passion for language and serious wordplay." The winner of some of Australia's top literary prizes, Shanghai Dancing has been praised by its judges as "a work of major significance [that] challenges our expectations of storytelling. It is impressive as history, as fiction, as a book which stretches the literary form and which speaks to the universality of the human experience." Shanghai Dancing marks the U.S. debut of a major Australian literary figure.…

Condition: New.

Paperback. Condition: New.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Hot on the heels of Pomeroy, Castro's third novel Double-Wolf was also published in 1991. It takes as its premise the fact that Sergei Wespe, Freud's famous 'Wolfman' patient, was an aspiring writer, and adept at spinning tales. Was what he told Freud 'the truth' about his neurotic condition, or did he spin out an elaborate narrative to please Freud? If the latter, where does Freud's own 'narrative' or 'discourse', psychotherapy, stand?Based on research about the real Wolfman, Castro combines reality and imagination in a vivid tale that has the reading guessing: what is 'the truth'? At times salacious and at times outrageously funny, it questions the idea of the 'myths' that we consctruct to make sense of our world. Double-Wolf takes as its premise the fact that Sergei Wespe, Freud's famous 'Wolfman', was an aspiring writer, and adept at spinning tales. Was what he told Freud 'the truth' about his neurotic condition, or did he spin out an elaborate narrative to please Freud? If the latter, where does Freud's own 'narrative', psychotherapy, stand? Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Condition: As New. Unread book in perfect condition.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Winner of the 2018 Prime Minister's Literary Award for PoetrySuffering from a fatal disease, Lucien Gracq travels to Paris to complete the epic poem he is writing and live out his last days. There he joins a secret writers' society, Le club des fugitifs, that guarantees to publish the work of its members anonymously, thus relieving them of the burdens of life, and more importantly, the disappointments of authorship. In Paris, Gracq finds himself crossing paths with a parade of phantasms, illustrious writers from the previous century masters of identity, connoisseurs of eroticism, theorists of game and rule, emigres and Oulipeans. He flees from the deathly allure of the Fugitives, and towards the arms of his beloved but it may be too late.Written in thirty-four cantos, Blindness & Rage recalls Virgil and Dante in its descent into the underworld of writing, and Pushkin's Eugene Onegin with its mixture of wonder and melancholy. The short lines bring out the rhythmic qualities of Castro's prose, enhance his playfulness and love of puns, his use of allusion and metaphor. Always an innovator, in Blindness & Rage he again throws down a challenge to the limits of the novel form.Brian Castro is the author of the prize-winning Australian classic Shanghai Dancing, and recipient of the 2014 Patrick White Literary Award. His recent novels include The Garden Book and The Bath Fugues, both shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and Street to Street, loosely based on the life of the poet Christopher Brennan. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Adelaide University. Winner of the 2018 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Condition: As New. Unread book in perfect condition.

Paperback. Condition: New.

Paperback. Condition: New. After 40 years in Australia, António Castro packs a bag and walks out of his old life forever. The victim of a restlessness he calls "Shanghai Dancing," António seeks to understand the source of his condition in his family's wanderings. Reversing his parents' own migration, António heads back to their native Shanghai, where his world begins to fragment as his ancestry starts to flood into his present, and emissaries of glittering pre-war China, evangelical Liverpool and seventeenth-century Portugal merge into contemporary backdrops across Asia, Europe and Australia. A "fictional autobiography," Shanghai Dancing is a dazzling meditation on identity, language and disorientation that combines photographs and written images in the style of W.G. Sebald. The Age has described the book as "an extraordinary polyglot mix of sources: Portuguese, Chinese, English, Jewish and Catholic, and a mysterious recessive black gene. told in Castro's characteristically baroque prose, dense with its passion for language and serious wordplay." The winner of some of Australia's top literary prizes, Shanghai Dancing has been praised by its judges as "a work of major significance [that] challenges our expectations of storytelling. It is impressive as history, as fiction, as a book which stretches the literary form and which speaks to the universality of the human experience." Shanghai Dancing marks the U.S. debut of a major Australian literary figure.…

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. **Shortlisted, Miles Franklin Literary Award 2025**Abraham Quin is in his mid-seventies, a migrant, thrice-divorced, a one-time postman and professor, a writer now living alone in the Adelaide Hills. In The Chinese Postman he reflects on his life with what he calls the mannered and meditative inaction of age, offering up memories and anxieties, obsessions and opinions, his thoughts on solitude, writing, friendship and time. He ranges widely, with curiosity and feeling, digressing and changing direction as suits his experience, and his role as a collector of fragments and a surveyor of ruins. He becomes increasingly engaged in an epistolary correspondence with Iryna Zarebina, a woman seeking refuge from the war in Ukraine. As the correspondence opens him to others, the elaboration of his memories tempers his melancholy with a playful enjoyment in the richness of language, and a renewed appreciation of the small events in nature. This understanding of the experience of old age is something new and important in our literature. As Quin comments, In Australia, the old made way for the young. It guaranteed a juvenile legacy. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Condition: Very Good. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. The Bath Fugues is Castro at his best, in a wonderful performance wrought from intrigue, romance, deception and comedy. The book is composed of three interwoven novellas, the first centred on an ageing art forger; the second on a Portuguese poet, opium addict and collector; the third told by a well-connected doctor, with a cabinet of venom, and an art gallery on the north Queensland coast.Around these characters circle others, in the contrapuntal manner of the fugue suggested by the book's title. Some are related, some fugitive, some like the essayist Montaigne, the poet Baudelaire or the philosopher Benjamin, enter the story from the past.Motifs recur baths, bicycles, clocks, addiction, the counterfeit deepening the lines of association and inheritance which bind their lives, and giving weight to the friendships thrust upon them.'one of the most exacting, yet rewarding of Australian novelists, and when the mood is on him, one of the most amusing as well.' PETER PIERCE, The Age'His way of working has produced startlingly original storytelling, the sort that reminds me, with joy, again and again, that anything is possible in literature.' SUE BOND, Asian Review Of Books The Bath Fugues Around these characters circle others, in the contrapuntal manner of the fugue suggested by the book's title. Some are related, some fugitive, some like the essayist Montaigne, the poet Baudelaire or the philosopher Benjamin, enter the story from the past. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Condition: Good. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Shanghai Dancing is the most highly regarded and popular novel by multi-award winning Australian author, Brian Castro. In it, his fictional persona Antonio Castro faces dispossession in Australia after the death of his parents. In an attempt to recover something of the inheritance that has been denied him, he brings his parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, and their tangled relationships, back to life, by recounting their stories and by rediscovering, in the photographs and documents and secrets which they left behind, the defections and betrayals which have led to his own disinheritance. Shanghai Dancing Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…