Sublime writer Peter Matthiessen's last book

By Susan Wyndham
Updated April 23 2014 - 8:13pm, first published April 11 2014 - 2:18pm
Author Peter Matthiessen died age 86, on April 5, 2014, as his new novel <i>In Paradise</i> is released. Photo: Ken Hivley/Los Angeles Times
Author Peter Matthiessen died age 86, on April 5, 2014, as his new novel <i>In Paradise</i> is released. Photo: Ken Hivley/Los Angeles Times

The Herald had a journalist lined up to interview Peter Matthiessen about his new novel, In Paradise, which is out in the United States this week and here in June from Scribe. Sadly it was not to be, because the American writer died on April 5 at the age of 86. Fortunately for his readers, The New York Times Magazine ran his final interview last weekend, an insightful discussion of his writing, his work in Paris for the CIA (he co-founded The Paris Review as cover), his travel adventures and his spiritual life as a Zen master. Most admired for The Snow Leopard (1978), which won National Book Awards for non-fiction and contemporary thought, he published more than 30 books. I saw him speak at New York's 92nd Y before Killing Mr Watson was published in 1990, and introduced him at my first Sydney literary lunch in 1996. He had a place in my heart and leaves a hole in American literature.

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