Murray Bail (born 22 September 1941) is an Australian writer of novels, short stories and non-fiction. In 1980 he shared the

Age Book of the Year ''The Age'' Book of the Year Awards were annual literary awards presented by Melbourne's ''The Age'' newspaper. The awards were first presented in 1974. After 1998, they were presented as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival. Initially, two awar ...

award for his novel ''Homesickness.'' He was born in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

, South Australia. He has lived most of his life in Australia except for sojourns in India (1968–70) and England and Europe (1970–74). He lives in Sydney. He was trustee of the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

from 1976 to 1981 and wrote a book on Australian artist

Ian Fairweather Ian Fairweather (29 September 189120 May 1974) was a Scottish painter resident in Australia for much of his life. He combined western and Asian influences in his work. Life Ian Fairweather was born in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, Scotland in ...

. A portrait of Bail by the artist Fred Williams is hung in the

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

. The portrait was done while both Williams and Bail were Council members of the National Gallery of Australia.

Career

He is most well known for ''

Eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...

'', which won the

Miles Franklin Award The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–195 ...

in 1999. His other work includes the novels ''Homesickness'', which was a joint winner of

The Age Book of the Year ''The Age'' Book of the Year Awards were annual literary awards presented by Melbourne's ''The Age'' newspaper. The awards were first presented in 1974. After 1998, they were presented as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival. Initially, two awar ...

in 1980, and ''Holden's Performance'', another award-winner. Reviewers recently compared Bail's ''Notebooks 1970-2003'' with

Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

, Gide and

Valéry The French name Valery () is a male given name or surname of Germanic origin ''Walaric'' (see Walric of Leuconay), that has often been confused in modern times with the Latin name ''Valerius''—that explains the variant spelling Valéry (). The S ...

's. ''The Pages''

008 008, OO8, O08, or 0O8 may refer to: * The Streetwear Brand @008us , inspired by Ian Fleming & Virgil Abloh *"030", the fictional 030 Agent of MI6 * '' 038: Operation Exterminate'', a 1965 Italian action film * '' Explosivo 030'' a 1940 Argentine c ...

was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. His latest novel, ''The Voyage'', was released in November 2012. Laurie Clancy suggests that Bail is, with Peter Carey and

Frank Moorhouse Frank Thomas Moorhouse (21 December 1938 – 26 June 2022) was an Australian writer. He won major Australian national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay, and for script writing. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, ...

, one of the chief innovators in Australian short story writing, and that he was part of its revival in the 1970s. He notes that Bail is particularly interested in the relationship between language and reality, and that this is evident in his early short stories. Clancy says "the stories display the strange mixture of surrealist fantasy and broad satire of Australian mores that characterizes all of Bail's work". After early success with short fiction, Bail turned to the novel as a form commensurate with his vision of life's complexity, which emerges in all its perplexing intricacy in ''Homesickness''. This first novel describes the unscripted, global travels of a group of Australian tourists to diverse museums, real and imaginary. His next book, ''Holden's Performance'', dealt more overtly with issues of national identity and the diverse forces that shape individual character. His later novels explored related issues in terms of a key binary: in ''Eucalyptus'', these are empirical knowledge and imagination, in ''The Pages'' psychology and philosophy. Bail prides himself, rightly, on being a novelist of ideas, who is determined to be audacious in his creations and to challenge reader expectations and complacency. The standard study of his work is Michael Ackland's ''The Experimental Fiction of Murray Bail'' (2012).

Personal life

Bail is the second of four children. His father worked in the tramways and his mother was a homemaker. He attended Norwood Technical High School. Bail started working in advertising agencies in Adelaide and Melbourne. He and his first wife moved to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in 1968, where he worked in an advertising agency in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. He contracted

amoebic dysentery Amoebiasis, or amoebic dysentery, is an infection of the intestines caused by a parasitic amoeba ''Entamoeba histolytica''. Amoebiasis can be present with no, mild, or severe symptoms. Symptoms may include lethargy, loss of weight, colonic ulc ...

on his travels, and went to London for treatment at the

Hospital for Tropical Diseases The Hospital for Tropical Diseases (HTD) is a specialist tropical disease hospital located in London, United Kingdom. It is part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is closely associated with University College Lo ...

. There he decided the novel he had written in India was worthless, so he threw it in the garbage. He remained in London for five years, the first year on the dole, before returning to Australia in 1975. Bail has been married and divorced twice. He was first married in 1965, and divorced in 1988. His second wife was fellow writer

Helen Garner Helen Garner (née Ford, born 7 November 1942) is an Australian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. Garner's first novel, ''Monkey Grip (novel), Monkey Grip'', published in 1977, immediately established her as an origina ...

, whom he married in 1992. They divorced in 1998.

Awards

*1980:

, joint winner for ''Homesickness'' with David Ireland's ''Woman of the Future'' *1980:

National Book Council Award National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

for ''Homesickness'' *1988:

Victorian Premier's Literary Award The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Government with the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry. As of 2013, it is reportedly Australia's richest literary p ...

Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction The Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has an remuneration of 25,000. The winner of this category prize vi ...

for ''Holden's Performance'' *1998:

ALS Gold Medal The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (ALS Gold Medal) is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the ...

for ''Eucalyptus'' *1999:

Commonwealth Writers' Prize Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best ...

for ''Eucalyptus''

Bibliography

Novels

* ''Homesickness (1980) * ''Holden's Performance'' (1987) * ''

'' (1998) * ''

The Pages The Pages is an island group in the Australian state of South Australia consisting of two small islands and a reef located in Backstairs Passage, a strait separating Kangaroo Island and the Fleurieu Peninsula. The island group has been locate ...

'' (2008) * ''The Voyage'' (2012)

Short fiction

;Collections * ''Contemporary Portraits and Other Stories'' (1975), republished in 1986 as ''The Drover's Wife and Other Stories'' * ''Camouflage'' (2000), the Australian first edition consists of two stories: "Camouflage" and "The Seduction of My Sister". The UK hardcover edition (2001) includes an extra story "The Drover's Wife". The US edition (2002) expands on the UK hardcover edition with the inclusion of eleven other stories (all previously published in Contemporary Portraits and Other Stories).

Non-fiction

* ''Ian Fairweather'' (1981) * ''Longhand: A Writer's Notebook'' (1989) * * ''Notebooks 1970-2003'' (2005) * ''He.'' (2021)

Edited

* ''The Faber Book of Contemporary Australian Short Stories'' (1988)

Notes

References

Australian authors: Murray Bail
Accessed: 2007-11-16

at the '' complete review'' Accessed: 2007-09-19 {{DEFAULTSORT:Bail, Murray 1941 births Living people 20th-century Australian male writers 20th-century Australian novelists 20th-century Australian short story writers 21st-century Australian male writers 21st-century Australian novelists 21st-century Australian short story writers ALS Gold Medal winners Australian male novelists Australian male short story writers Granta people Miles Franklin Award winners Writers from Adelaide