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Theory & Practice

It’s 1986, and ‘beautiful, radical ideas’ are in the air. A young woman arrives in Melbourne to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In bohemian St Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit. He claims to be in a ‘deconstructed’ relationship, and they become lovers. Meanwhile, her work on the Woolfmother falls into disarray.

Theory & Practice is a mesmerising account of desire and jealousy, truth and shame. It makes and unmakes fiction as we read, expanding our notion of what a novel can contain.

Michelle de Kretser, one of Australia’s most celebrated writers, bends fiction, essay and memoir into exhilarating new shapes to uncover what happens when life smashes through the boundaries of art.

INTERVIEWS and REVIEWS

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Michelle de Kretser
About the Author

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka. She lives in Warrane/Sydney on unceded Gadigal land. An honorary associate of the English Department at the University of Sydney, she has won several awards for her fiction. Theory & Practice is her seventh novel.

Read Moreright
Extent:
192pp
Format:
Paperback
Text publication date:
29 October 2024
ISBN:
9781923058149
AU Price:
$32.99
NZ Price:
$38.00
Australian
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Praise for Michelle de Kretser
andTheory & Practice

‘A hugely talented author.’

‘Michelle de Kretser is a genius—one of the best writers working today. She is startlingly, uncannily good at naming and facing what is most difficult and precious about our lives. Theory & Practice is a wonder, a brilliant book that reinvents itself again and again, stretching the boundaries of the novel to show the ways in which ideas and ideals are folded into our days, as well as the times when our choices fail to meet them. There’s no writer I’d rather read.’

‘In the midst of a late coming-of-age plot effervescent with romantic and intellectual misadventure, de Kretser considers memory—how we enshrine our cultural heroes and how we tell ourselves the stories of our own lives—with absolute rigor and perfect clarity. Structurally innovative and totally absorbing, this is a book that enlivens the reader to every kind of possibility. I savored every word.’

‘Michelle de Kretser, one of the best writers in the English language, has written her most brilliant book yet. It is, in short, a masterpiece.’

‘One of the living masters of the art of fiction.’

‘Thrillingly original.’

‘Sharp-witted and mesmerising…The narrator’s clever political insights and beautiful depictions of art and literature offer readers a view into a captivating mind. De Kretser is at the top of her game.’

Other editions ofTheory & Practice
  • Theory & Practice
    ebook
    ISBN: 9781923059115
    29 October 2024
    Buy ebook