MURNANE, Gerald

(1939-)

   Australian writer, highly regarded in his native land for his experimental short stories and novels, such as Tamarisk Row (1974). GM's meditative style bears comparison with that of Jorge Luis BORGES. He disclaims any connection with sf, but has written several fictions about ALTERNATE WORLDS. In The Plains (1982) the narrator enters an alternateAustralia: an inland feudal society, whose landowners, devoted patrons of the arts, take part in elaborate games and rituals. The narrator is hired to make a film about this society, but in the end accepts its solipsistic ideals and abandons his project. "The Battle of Acosta Nu" (1985), which can be found in Landscape with Landscape (coll of linked novellas 1985), tells of a man living in Melbourne, Australia, who all his life believes himself to be living in New Australia, the (actual) Australian colony founded in Paraguay in the early 1900s. Or perhaps it is the other way around.

   BG