Contemporary Australian Literature Gift Pack

For the observer… this set contains two books by Australian artist and author, Patrick Hartigan.

In The Village is Quiet, set in a Slovak village where his wife Lenka was born, Hartigan draws us into the simple and sensory lives of a grandpa, grandma, Linda the dog and the villagers who go about their business. Hartigan chronicles the family relationships and rituals from the viewpoint of an outsider and yet the care he brings to these observations makes them feel like cherished heirlooms.

In Offcuts, Hartigan recalls the weeks leading to his father’s death and his daughter’s birth. The people he meets, the places he visits, even the objects he touches for a moment, take on a radiance usually seen in artworks we admire. Part visual memoir, part meditation on the colours and contours of life’s events, Offcuts reveals the substance of seemingly mundane moments.

Praise for The Village is Quiet

‘The book is a gem.’

— Caroline Overington, The Australian

Praise for Offcuts

‘Patrick Hartigan writes the same way that he paints: as if the world is standing still and he is walking through it. This is a book of noticing, fragile and fragmented, full of yearning and idiosyncrasy. It is beautiful and in its own way perfect.’

— Erik Jensen, author of Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen and On Kate Jennings