CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

Listen to Tim Winton reading from Breath, his first novel in seven years, on the Herald Sun website. While not a YA novel, for reasons explained in the Fiction Focus review, many passages of Winton’s lyrical prose would be enjoyed by teenagers as exemplars of descriptive writing. Who has described the spiritual experience of surfing better?

The accompanying book trailer gives a profound sense of place - the beauty and the menace of the landscape of Western Australia’s south west.

Tim Winton’s latest novel Breath will be reviewed in Issue 2 of Fiction Focus shortly. Published only a few weeks ago, Breath is already receiving critical acclaim world-wide.

His earlier title Cloudstreet is often described as Australia’s most-loved novel and is still widely studied in classrooms around the country. Teachers and senior students will be interested in an extended interview with Tim Winton on The Monthly magazine’s Slow TV site. In two parts, each of 23 minutes duration, Winton is in conversation with journalist and writer Martin Flanagan where he discusses his work and the influences on his writing.