{"id":36674,"date":"2013-09-23T16:01:02","date_gmt":"2013-09-23T06:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/?p=36674"},"modified":"2016-03-01T09:31:16","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T23:31:16","slug":"one-of-australias-greatest-novelists-christopher-koch-passes-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2013\/09\/23\/one-of-australias-greatest-novelists-christopher-koch-passes-away\/","title":{"rendered":"One Of Australia’s Greatest Novelists Christopher Koch Passes Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It is with deep sorrow that we share the sad news that Christopher Koch passed away peacefully in the early hours of this morning near his home in Tasmania.<\/p>\n

A leading Australian literary novelist, Christopher Koch was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature in 1995 and was twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award for fiction.<\/p>\n

Born and educated in Tasmania, Chris spent most of his life in Sydney where he worked for some years as a radio producer at the ABC. <\/strong>He became a full time novelist in 1972 and is the author of eight novels and two works of non-fiction; most recently Lost Voices<\/i><\/a>, a hauntingly beautiful story about the many legacies of Tasmania\u2019s convict past.<\/p>\n

He won the Miles Franklin Award for Fiction twice for The Doubleman<\/i><\/a> and Highways to A War<\/i><\/a> and was also awarded The Age<\/i> Book of the Year Award and the National Book Council Award for Literature for The Year of Living Dangerously<\/i><\/a>, as well as the Colin Roderick and the Victoria Premier\u2019s Award for Out of Ireland<\/i><\/a>.\u00a0The Year of Living Dangerously<\/i><\/a> <\/i>was made into an acclaimed film by Peter Weir.<\/p>\n

Christopher is survived by his wife Robin and his family.<\/p>\n

Harper Collins Publishing Director Shona Martyn:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cChristopher Koch was one of Australia\u2019s greatest novelists and it was a privilege to publish him and to know him.\u00a0 He was a man with an exceptional commitment to his writing. \u00a0Even during his recent illness he was in constant contact with his editor discussing the finer points of layout and punctuation for an extensive re-release of his impressive backlist on the Fourth Estate list. To me, a particularly special aspect of Chris Koch\u2019s work, was his ability to capture his home state Tasmania, its landscape, its\u00a0history, its people in novels such his final book Lost Voices<\/i> and 1999\u2019s Out of Ireland.<\/i> \u00a0\u00a0His work has made a major contribution to our country\u2019s literature and to the portrayal of Australians. At HarperCollins we will miss him dearly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher\u2019s agent for nearly twenty years, Margaret Connolly:<\/b><\/p>\n

“It was a great pleasure to work with Christopher. He was enormous fun and stayed the same person. What mattered to him always was the work.\u00a0 I am saddened by the loss of one of Australia\u2019s great writers, and the loss of a wonderful friend.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click here to see all titles written by Christopher Koch<\/strong><\/a>
\n with Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is with deep sorrow that we share the sad news that Christopher Koch passed away peacefully in the early hours of this morning near his home in Tasmania. A leading Australian literary novelist, Christopher Koch was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature in 1995 and was twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award for fiction. Born and educated in Tasmania, Chris spent most of his life in Sydney where he worked for some years as a radio producer at the ABC. He became a full time novelist in 1972 and is the author of eight novels and two works of non-fiction; most recently Lost Voices, a hauntingly beautiful story about the many legacies of Tasmania\u2019s convict past. He won the Miles Franklin Award for Fiction twice for The Doubleman and Highways to A War and was also awarded The Age Book of the Year Award and the National Book Council Award for Literature for The Year of Living Dangerously, as well as the Colin Roderick and the Victoria Premier\u2019s Award for Out of Ireland.\u00a0The Year of Living Dangerously was made into an acclaimed film by Peter Weir. Christopher is survived by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[4,9,40,58],"tags":[1294],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56696,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36674\/revisions\/56696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}