Richard Flanagan, Tasmanian author of The Unknown Terrorist (2006) and internationally acclaimed writer of three previous narratives, Death of a River Guide (1994) The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997) and Gould’s Book of Fish (2001), is many-sided in his creative output. Not only is he a prize-winning novelist who had previously published several volumes of non-fiction, but a film-director, television drama-writer, political commentator and ardent conservationist. While the earlier novels are all three related to Tasmania, this narrative, set in contemporary Sydney, proffers political and social fiction in the guise of a thriller. It offers a reading that presents an attack on the public manipulation of fear in the face of global terrorist assaults and the Howard Government’s implementation of these fears in ‘an increasingly uncivil public sphere’. The focus is not on terrorism itself, but on its perception and on the generation of fear, “a valued commodity for terrorists and governments alike” (Kakutani 2006). It is exploited in this case by an unscrupulous media journalist allied to those with links to power, who, in a spiralling of tension and terror alerts, contrive to turn an innocent erotic dancer into the country’s most wanted “unknown terrorist.”
As a literary work, The Unknown Terrorist may not achieve the distinction of Flanagan’s previous narratives, for the author’s passion for his subject tends to become obtrusive. It is nevertheless a novel of great relevance to our times, and to Australia, especially in view of the 2007 Haneef episode.