The Ancestor Game
0-14-015987-8
The Ancestor Game is a 1992 Miles Franklin literary award-winning novel by the Australian author Alex Miller.[1]
Abstract
Writer Steven Muir, August Spiess and his daughter Gertrude, work together to understand the puzzle of Lang Tzu, an exiled Chinese artist from a wealthy family. The novel explores the themes of cultural displacement, the role of the migrant in modern Australia and race relations.
Critical reception
In "The Australian Book Review" Sophie Masson stated: "Alex Miller’s third novel treads some complex and difficult territory, staking out the past, memory, and the creation of self. It is also an incursion into the shadowy borderlands that lie between history and fiction, and the way in which, for every individual, the past has a different face. It is a very modern novel, in its rejection of the linear certitudes of an earlier age, and a very Australian one, too, in its ambivalence towards ancestry and individuality. In a most immediate way, ‘Australia’ is a created thing, a fiction shaped by nineteenth-century notions of the individual, in conflict with the more elemental notions of ancestry."[2]
Peter Davis, in "The Canberra Times" noted: "The Ancestor Game is like a game of three-dimensional chess played on a series of layered mirrors. Miller's extraordinary attention to detail allows us to not just see his characters but to imagine them in the past, present and future. We traverse the fear and chaos of the Victorian goldfields where transience, solitude and a desperate clinging to notions of what Australia could be help shape the destiny of Lang Tsu. We observe a frenetic hope in Shanghai and the embracing of the new world. And we peep through the half-closed shutters that cast shadows on the mystic traditions of ancient China."[3]
Publication history
After the novel's initial publication by Penguin in Australia in 1992 it was republished as follows:
- Graywolf Press, USA, 1993[4]
- Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2000[5]
- Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2003[6]
- Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2016[7]
It was also translated into Chinese in 1995, and Bulgarian in 2012.[8]
Awards
- 1993 Winner Miles Franklin Literary Award[9]
- 1993 Winner Overall Best Book Award Commonwealth Writers Prize[10]
- 1993 Shortlisted NBC Banjo Awards, NBC Banjo Award for Fiction
- 1992 Joint Winner FAW Barbara Ramsden Award for the Book of the Year[11]
References
- ^ "The Ancestor Game (Penguin)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- ^ ""The Ancestor Game by Alex Miller" (Allen & Unwin)". Australian Book Review. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
- ^ ""New book like chess played on mirrors in three dimensions"". The Canberra Times, 2 August 1992, p22. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
- ^ "The Ancestor Game (Graywolf)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- ^ "The Ancestor Game (A&U 2000)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- ^ "The Ancestor Game (A&U 2003)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- ^ "The Ancestor Game (A&U 2016)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- ^ "The Ancestor Game". Austlit. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- ^ "Miller wins Miles Franklin". The Canberra Times, 26 May 1993, p5. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- ^ "Commonwealth Writers Prize - Regional Winners - 1987-2007" (PDF). Commonwealth Writers Prize. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- ^ "Guide to the Papers of Alex Miller". UNSW Canberra. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- v
- t
- e
- Voss by Patrick White (1957)
- To the Islands by Randolph Stow (1958)
- The Big Fellow by Vance Palmer (1959)
- The Irishman by Elizabeth O'Conner (1960)
- Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White (1961)
- The Well Dressed Explorer by Thea Astley (1962)
- The Cupboard Under the Stairs by George Turner (1962)
- Careful, He Might Hear You by Sumner Locke Elliott (1963)
- My Brother Jack by George Johnston (1964)
- The Slow Natives by Thea Astley (1965)
- Trap by Peter Mathers (1966)
- Bring Larks and Heroes by Thomas Keneally (1967)
- Three Cheers for the Paraclete by Thomas Keneally (1968)
- Clean Straw for Nothing by George Johnston (1969)
- A Horse of Air by Dal Stivens (1970)
- The Unknown Industrial Prisoner by David Ireland (1971)
- The Acolyte by Thea Astley (1972)
- No award (1973)
- The Mango Tree by Ronald McKie (1974)
- Poor Fellow My Country by Xavier Herbert (1976)
- The Glass Canoe by David Ireland (1977)
- Swords and Crowns and Rings by Ruth Park (1978)
- A Woman of the Future by David Ireland (1979)
- The Impersonators by Jessica Anderson (1980)
- Bliss by Peter Carey (1981)
- Just Relations by Rodney Hall (1982)
- No award (1983)
- Shallows by Tim Winton (1984)
- The Doubleman by Christopher Koch (1985)
- The Well by Elizabeth Jolley (1986)
- Dancing on Coral by Glenda Adams (1987)
- No award (1988)
- Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (1989)
- Oceana Fine by Tom Flood (1990)
- The Great World by David Malouf (1991)
- Cloudstreet by Tim Winton (1992)
- The Ancestor Game by Alex Miller (1993)
- The Grisly Wife by Rodney Hall (1994)
- The Hand That Signed the Paper by Helen Darville (1995)
- Highways to a War by Christopher Koch (1996)
- The Glade Within the Grove by David Foster (1997)
- Jack Maggs by Peter Carey (1998)
- Eucalyptus by Murray Bail (1999)
- Drylands by Thea Astley (2000)
- Benang by Kim Scott (2000)
- Dark Palace by Frank Moorhouse (2001)
- Dirt Music by Tim Winton (2002)
- Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller (2003)
- The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard (2004)
- The White Earth by Andrew McGahan (2005)
- The Ballad of Desmond Kale by Roger McDonald (2006)
- Carpentaria by Alexis Wright (2007)
- The Time We Have Taken by Steven Carroll (2008)
- Breath by Tim Winton (2009)
- Truth by Peter Temple (2010)
- That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott (2011)
- All That I Am by Anna Funder (2012)
- Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser (2013)
- All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld (2014)
- The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna (2015)
- Black Rock White City by A. S. Patrić (2016)
- Extinctions by Josephine Wilson (2017)
- The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser (2018)
- Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko (2019)
- The Yield by Tara June Winch (2020)
- The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey (2021)
- Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down (2022)
- Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran (2023)