Michaela Saunders

The sentence craft is superb.

The structure of paragraphs, the ideas that she conveys very quickly is deft and delicate.

And yet it's one of the most difficult books I've read this year, I think.

There's something interesting also, Kate.

I'm not sure if this occurred to you, but we're talking about art and we're talking about Lawrence being this loner and his relationship with Paul.

I felt the whole way through the second half of this book, there was a deliberate comparison being drawn to Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo.

In contrast...

The friendship between Theo and Theo's endless generosity, both financial and emotional and professional, for his brother Vincent is famous.

But in this one, there is no capacity in Paul to be able to be that person.

And I just thought it was so striking, this connection.

and maybe I'm making it up and I'm seeing something that isn't there, but there are a couple of references, enough references to Vincent, particularly in relation to the letters from the masters, that made me really feel there was a comparison being drawn by Sophie Laguna.

And I'm not sure what exactly she was driving at, but perhaps it is that artists like this do need a Theo rather than a Paul reference.

For I've grown to a cherry blossom tree

This is The Bookshelf on ABC Radio National, on the ABC Listen app and wherever you get your fine podcasts.

I'm Cassie McCullough here with Kate Evans, ready to meet today's guests, starting with Michaela Saunders, writer, poet and winner of this year's Australian Book Review Elizabeth Jolly Short Story Prize.

Also the Oujaroo Noonuckle Poetry Prize as well.

Hello and congratulations, Michaela.

Now, you are also writing a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Sydney.

What's your project there?

Yeah.