Geraldine Brooks ‘A Home in Fiction’ 
Boyer Lectures 2011: ‘The Idea of Home’, Lecture 4 Broadcast 11 December 2011

Speaker:  Geraldine Brooks
Audience:  Immediate audience, those listening to the Boyer Lectures.  These lectures are broadcast on the ABC's Radio National on Sunday afternoons.  The topics include "the latest in science, books and publishing, religion, social history, the arts and current affairs." (Radio National "About Page" http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/about/ )  The audience is hence an intelligent and well-informed audience with an interest in the above areas.  For Brooks' lecture, those who are lovers of fiction and those who seek to be familiar with recent intellectual/academic ideas.
The purpose of the Radio National (and Boyer Lectures as part of this program) is outlined on the website -  "RN's vision and purpose is to nurture the intellectual and cultural life of this country, and to be a vital element of the contemporary Australian conversation."
Speech purpose: To convey how mathematics is like poetry and the role of fiction writers in contributing to the national dialogue.  Her lecture also reflects on her life in journalism and as a fiction writer, and how she goes about the creative writing process.
Context: 
  • Is a writer and journalist
  • Born in Sydney – graduated form Sydney University
  • Worked for the SMH for 3 years
  • Moved to the US in 1982 and went to Colombia University
  • Worked for the Wall Street Journal as a correspondent in the Middle East, Africa and Bosnia
  • Married a fellow journalist, Tony Horwitz and converted to Judaism
    They have 2 children and have homes in Sydney and Massachusetts
  • In 2006 she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, March.    By the time of this speech, she had already won the Pulitzer Prize
  • Part of the RN series in 2011 on "The Idea of Home" in 2011 - iinteresting as she herself is an expatriate
  • Brooks was a journalist and writing.  
Ideas:
Focuses on literary notions and the process of creating fiction
  • Fiction has its origins in fact
  • The power and value of fiction
  • An author, like a mathematician, is searching for truth, which is quest-like
  • Her ability to hear (and give life to) voices/stories from the past.
Common techniques used:
  • Anecdotes
  • Tropes (Metaphors, extended metaphors, similes)
  • Verb choice
  • truncated sentences
  • comparison/contrast (and juxtaposition)
  • allusions (musical, intertextual references.)
  • imagery
  • humour
  • paradox
  • rhetorical questions
Watch the above video on Brooks, being interviewed by Jennifer Byrne.  What does this tell you about her context?