Seven Types of Ambiguity

Elliot Perlman’s novel Three Dollars won the Age Book of the Year Award, the Betty Trask Award (UK), and the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Book of the Year Award. It was also shortlisted for the John Llewellyn-Rhys/Mail On Sunday Book of the Year Award (UK) and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Perlman co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Three Dollars, which received the Australian Film Critics’ Circle Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the A.F.I. Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

His collection of stories, The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming, was a bestseller in the US, named a New York Times Book Review ‘Editors’ Choice,’ and received the Steele Rudd Award for best Australian short story collection.

Perlman’s second novel, Seven Types of Ambiguity, was a bestseller in France, where Le Monde called it “one of the best novels of recent years, a complete success.” In Germany, it was hailed as a “literary sensation” by Deutschlandradio, and Der Spiegel described it as “an impressive, iridescent all-encompassing view of feeling.” Süddeutsche Zeitung noted it possessed “the virtues of the great modern European novel.” In the US, the novel was a bestseller and noted for having “traces of Dickens’s range and of George Eliot’s generous humanist spirit” by The New York Times. It was named a New York Times Book Review ‘Editors’ Choice,’ a New York Times Book Review ‘Notable Book of the Year,’ and a Washington Post ‘Editors’ Choice.’ The Washington Post also included it among its “all-time dozen favourites ‘on the pain of love’.” In the UK, The Observer called it “a colossal achievement….a tour de force…(in which) at the end, in a comprehensive, an almost Shakespearian way, Perlman picks up every loose thread and knots it,” and the Sunday Telegraph named it a ‘Book of the Year’. In Australia, Seven Types of Ambiguity was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for Fiction.

Perlman’s bestselling novel The Street Sweeper was praised by The Times (UK) as “Excellent … harrowing, humane and brilliant” and by Entertainment Weekly (US) as “a towering achievement: a strikingly modern literary novel.” The San Francisco Chronicle described it as “an epic tale that spans decades and bridges generations while chronicling the predominant chapters of racial persecution perpetrated in the darkest hours of the twentieth century…wherein Perlman shines a fresh light on the struggle of the American civil rights movement… The narrative pull is breathtaking as he pulls off the supreme feat of articulating the unspeakable… This stunning novel works and matters, because of the expert way Perlman has recorded both the agonized howl of the past and the plaintive echoes of the present.” The Washington Post called it “a wonderfully rich, engaging and multilayered story…from an author of rare erudition and compassion.” Publishers Weekly (starred review) noted that “Perlman brilliantly makes personal both the Holocaust and the civil rights movement, and crafts a moving and literate page-turner.” The Jerusalem Post added that “Perlman burnishes his reputation as a masterful storyteller who captures the cadences of consciousness and conversation and the varieties and vagaries of cruelty, courage and compassion… You will, in all likelihood, find it unforgettable.”

Elliot Perlman’s first children’s novel, The Adventures of Catvinkle, was called “an instant children’s classic, that you enjoy as much as the little ones you know, and that you start giving as a gift because of its inherent, feel-good message” by the Sunday Age. Books+Publishing described it as “A charming and whimsical tale… replete with gentle lessons… about empathy, bravery and friendship… a simply delightful and easy-to-read story with laugh-out-loud dialogue that doesn’t talk down to its readers.” The Sydney Morning Herald stated it is “… exactly the sort of book I loved being given as a child, a book you can cherish.” Magpies noted that “themes of social inclusion, anti-racism and anti-bullying are treated gently in this delightful, easy-to-read story… and there are many quirky, humorous moments…” Better Reading called it “A gorgeous book guaranteed to give great joy.” The Adventures of Catvinkle was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book 2019 and was shortlisted for the 2019 Children’s Peace Literature Award.

Perlman’s novel Maybe the Horse Will Talk is described as “a thriller-like, stylish, compelling novel that manages at once to limn injustices wrought by corporate acquisitiveness, misogyny and discrimination, and to affirm the transformative capacity of empathy. And while there is a deep and steady seriousness … it is also funny as well as exhilarating and humane, pitching longing, love and kindness hopefully and inspiringly against violence” by the Weekend Australian. The Sydney Morning Herald called it “A timely look at sexual harassment and corporate corruption that manages to be laugh-out-loud funny.” The review also highlighted that “the novelist’s mastery of the sentence is on full display in the rapid-fire dialogue between his characters… If Maybe the Horse will Talk stands apart in Perlman’s oeuvre for its intention to make readers smile, it continues the author’s interest in addressing social concerns through fiction” (The Saturday Age).

Elliot Perlman is the recipient of the Queensland Premier’s Award for Advancing Public Debate. He has been described by the Times Literary Supplement (UK) as “Australia’s outstanding social novelist,” by Le Nouvel Observateur (France) as the “Zola d’Australie,” and by Lire (France) as “the classic of tomorrow,” one of the “50 most important writers in the world.”

Catvinkle and the Missing Tulips, a sequel to The Adventures of Catvinkle, is scheduled for publication in October 2020.

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