Brisbane author Dr Venero (Veny) Armanno will discuss events leading to publication of his sixth novel, The Volcano, at a free UQ public lecture next month.
The lecture entitled Under the Volcano, will be held by the University’s Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies on Thursday, August 23 at the Mayne Centre, University Drive, St Lucia at 5.30pm.
In 2001 Dr Armanno's sixth novel, The Volcano, was published, but the years leading up to it seeing the light of day involved more than just sitting down and writing the story. The germinal idea for the book came to him in the late 80s and its first form was actually as a screenplay written in 1991/1992– a six-hour, three part screenplay that was, according to Dr Armanno, "never going to get made".
"The screenplay taught me a few things: one, I had about 20 minutes of a good idea, the rest was pretty bad, and two, I knew far too little about Sicily and Italy’s socio-economic evolution, the development of Brisbane as a city, and the experiences of European migrants in their journey to Australia." he said.
According to Dr Armanno these three areas of ignorance led to years of research, which relied on traditional library methods, the Internet, field trips, and many, many conversations with people who were “there”. The oral histrories and personal stories of these individuals turned out to be the most useful in the creative development of the eventual book.
In Dr Armanno's lecture he will discuss how fact, fiction and mythology combined to help him finally bring The Volcano to fruition.
Dr Armanno is a senior lecturer in UQ’s School of English, Media Studies and Art History.
He is also the author of a book of short stories, Jumping at the Moon, and seven critically acclaimed novels including Romeo of the Underworld, Firehead, The Volcano and Cande Life.
Firehead was shortlisted in the 1999 Queensland Premiers Literary Award for Best Fiction; The Volcano won that award in 2002. The Volcano was also shortlisted for the Courier-Mail Book of the Year. His fiction has been published in USA, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Holland, Israel and South Korea.
The lecture will be chaired by Professor Graeme Turner of the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies.
Members of the public and the university community are invited to attend this free lecture, after which light refreshments will be served.
Enquiries to Ms Rebecca Ralph, Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies. Phone (07) 3346 7407, fax (07) 3365 7184, email r.ralph@uq.edu.au.
Media: Jan King 0413 601 248.
