Arnold Zable (born 1947) is an Australian writer, novelist, storyteller and human rights advocate. His books include the memoir ''Jewels and Ashes'', three novels: ''Café Scheherazade'', ''Scraps of Heaven'', and ''Sea of Many Returns'', two collections of stories: ''The Fig Tree'' and ''Violin Lessons'', and ''The Fighter''. His most recent book, ''The Watermill'', was published in March 2020.
Life
Zable was born on 10 January 1947 in
Wellington, New Zealand
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...
to Polish-Jewish refugee parents. They moved early in his life to Australia and he grew up in
Carlton, Victoria
Carlton is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 3 km north of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne Local government areas of Vic ...
.
Themes and style
Zable is known as a storyteller — through his memoirs, short stories and novels. Australian critic
Susan Varga says that Zable's award-winning memoir, ''Jewels and Ashes'', "was a ground-breaking book in Australia, one of the first of what has since become a distinct auto/biographical genre: a second-generation writer returns to the scene of unspeakable crimes to try to understand a fraught and complex legacy, and, in so doing, embarks on a journey into the self."
In an interview Zable explained that the rights and experiences of refugees and asylum seekers underpins his work:
The current generation of refugees are experiencing the intense challenges faced by previous generations. We tend to forget, or fail to imagine, how difficult it is to start life anew far from the homeland. We forget also that nostalgia, the longing for the return to homeland, is a deep and enduring aspect of the refugee experience.[Arnold Zable interviewed by Mark Rubbo, Managing Director of Readings]
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In the same interview he said about his language that "I am drawn to the quirky sayings and observations that define a person or a culture".
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Awards and nominations
*1991: National Book Council Lysbeth Cohen Award for ''Jewels and Ashes''
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*1991: Ethnic Affairs Commission Award for ''Jewels and Ashes''[
*1992: FAW ANA Literature Award for ''Jewels and Ashes''][
*1992: Braille Book of the Year Award for ''Jewels and Ashes''][
*1992: Talking Book of the Year award for ''Jewels and Ashes''][
*2001: Shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards for fiction for ''Cafe Scheherazade''
*2003: People's Choice Award, Tasmanian Pacific Fiction Prize for ''Cafe Scheherazade''
*2004: National Folk Recording Award for ''The Fig Tree''
*2010: Nominated for The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for ''Sea of Many Returns''
*2013: The Victorian Council for Civil Liberties Voltaire Award
*2015: Life membership, Writers Victoria
*2016: Shortlisted, The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards for 'The Fighter'
*2016: Shortlisted, The New South Wales Literary awards for 'The Fighter'
*2017: The Australia Council Fellowship for Literature
*2020: Shortlisted, ]Queensland Literary Awards
The Queensland Literary Awards is an awards program established in 2012 by the Queensland literary community, funded by sponsors and administered by the State Library of Queensland. Like the former Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, the QLAs ...
, Nonfiction Book Award, for ''The Watermill''
*2021: Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature
Bibliography
Books
Critical studies and reviews of Zable's work
;''Violin lessons''
*
External links
Arnold Zable's website
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zable, Arnold
1947 births
Living people
Australian male novelists
Australian memoirists
Australian people of Polish-Jewish descent
Australian male short story writers
Jewish Australian writers
New Zealand emigrants to Australia
New Zealand Jews
New Zealand people of Polish-Jewish descent
Writers from Melbourne
Activists from Melbourne
20th-century Australian novelists
21st-century Australian novelists
20th-century Australian short story writers
21st-century Australian short story writers
20th-century Australian male writers
21st-century Australian male writers