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  • Published: 1 June 2009
  • ISBN: 9781741668544
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99

Black Mirror




‘I am waiting for this visitor so that I can tell my story and die.’ The award-winning novel from Gail Jones

‘I am waiting for this visitor so that I can tell my story and die.’ The award-winning novel from Gail Jones

Victoria Morrell was once a great artist. She led the high life - living and working in Paris, mixing with the artists of the Surrealist movement. Her work was largely forgotten in the fifties and sixties, but was rediscovered in the seventies when she became something of a cult figure on the London art scene. She now lives as a recluse in Hampstead, London. And she is dying.

Anna Griffin is the young woman commissioned to write a biography of Victoria's life. In many ways their lives strangely intersect, since they grew up in the same mining town and share preoccupations with underground spaces, deserts and the many forms of grief. In a compelling double narrative, Gail Jones tracks Victoria's past as it intertwines with Anna's life.

The stories Victoria tells enable both women to enter into new forms of sympathy and understanding. Elegant, enthralling, and emotionally charged, Black Mirror is both a novel of love and family mystery, and a meditation on the nature of artistic vision and obsession.

  • Published: 1 June 2009
  • ISBN: 9781741668544
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Gail Jones

Gail Jones lives in Sydney and teaches at the University of Western Sydney. Her books have won numerous literary awards in Australia. She is the author of two collections of short stories and five novels including Sixty Lights which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Dreams of Speaking which was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Orange Prize, and Sorry which was longlisted for the Orange Prize.

Gail Jones is the author of two short-story collections, a critical monograph, and the novels Black Mirror, Sixty Lights, Dreams of Speaking, Sorry, Five Bells and A Guide to Berlin. Three times shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, her prizes include the WA Premier's Award for Fiction, the Nita B. Kibble Award, the Steele Rudd Award, the Age Book of the Year Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Fiction and the ASAL Gold Medal. She has also been shortlisted for international awards, including the IMPAC and the Prix Femina. Her fiction has been translated into nine languages.

Also by Gail Jones

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Praise for Black Mirror

‘There is an intelligence and honesty to her writing that brings the characters powerfully to life.’ - The Age, Melbourne

‘A moving and captivating story... a feast for lovers of language.’ - Melbourne Times

‘Jones’s imagery is evocative... wonderful turns of phrase.’ - The Bulletin

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