Publisher's synopsis
To smack or not to smack is the question that reverberates through the interconnected lives dissected in Christos Tsiolkas’ award-winning novel.
At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.
It is a single act, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it.
Told through the eyes of eight of those present at the barbecue, this acclaimed bestseller is an unflinching interrogation of the life of the modern family. Poignant and provocative, THE SLAP makes us question the nature of commitment and happiness, compromise and truth. Whose side are you on?
Awards
- Winner Melbourne Prize for Literature 2021 AU; Winner, Overall Best Book the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2009
- Winner, ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2009 and Overall Book of the Year 2009
- Winner, ABA Book of the Year 2009
- Winner, ALS Gold Medal 2009
- Winner, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2009
- Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Prize 2009
- Shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award 2008
- Longlisted, The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2010 0
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Christos Tsiolkas is the author of six novels, including Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head-On, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe, which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award, as well as being made into a feature film. His fourth novel, the international bestseller The Slap, won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award, longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the Australian Literary Society Gold, as well as the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year. Christos’s fifth novel Barracuda was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal and the inaugural Voss Literary Prize. The Slap and Barracuda were both adapted into celebrated television series. Christos’s acclaimed collection of short stories, Merciless Gods, was published in 2014 and his critical literary study On Patrick White came out in 2018. He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne.
Photo by Zoe Ali, courtesy of Allen & Unwin
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