Reviews & Articles
"I suppose it's only possible for a novelist to reinvent the novel once. Richard Flanagan did so in Gould's Book of Fish - a gloriously eccentric, unclassifiable work in which some sketches of marine life open out into a tragicomic fable about the penal regime of colonial Tasmania. Now Flanagan has retreated to the safety of convention. The Unknown Terrorist is an exercise in genre fiction - a thriller that, I am glad to say, happens to be genuinely thrilling." Read full review (PDF 80KB)
Peter Conrad,
The Guardian
"Just who are the terrorists? Can they be identified with a specific religion, ethnicity or political ideology? As we approach Year 7 of the worldwide “war on terror,” Western popular thought has responded to these questions succinctly. Terrorists are Middle Eastern and Muslim; they are intensely antidemocratic. As a character in Richard Flanagan's new novel puts it, terrorists are those “dangerous Islamic types” who want to destroy our way of life. But is the answer really so simple?" Read full review (PDF 81KB)
Uzodinma Iweala,
THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW
"The fast-paced narrative builds to a fittingly bloody crescendo, and Flanagan drops astutely cynical observations along the way…A true page-turner as well as a timely, pithy critique of celebrity culture and the politics of fear-mongering."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)