James Cowan, who won the Australian Literary Society's Gold Medal back in 1998 for his novel A Mapmaker's Dream, is interviewed in the "Sunshine Coast Hinterland Times".
James has returned to Australia with a swag of new manuscripts which he is now preparing to publish with planned visits to agents in America and the UK. "The novel The Deposition was published in Argentina before I left. It's a novel set in Palestine 6 months after the death of Christ. It looks at the doubts in the mind of one of the Jewish high priests on the Sanhedrin that convicted Christ, and his doubts about the good sense of that decision. I've written a book of four essays called Quartet on the nature of power. I've just finished my first modern novel in 20 years called The Shores of Philae, set in Egypt. It's a modern love story.
[snip]
James Cowan commented on his astonishing range of literary interests and at 66, where he is headed as a writer. "I've never wanted to be pigeon-holed. I think I have come from that old tradition of literature where writers should not just be writing good novels or poetry, but should also try to take on big themes. For example, in my latest book (The Deposition) I am looking again at the story of those who survived the death of Christ. At first I thought, you can't write about Christ, it's been done to death. But, as a writer, you've got to take on some of the big subjects to see if there's anything new to say about them. So I am constantly looking for ways of re-expressing old virtualities; seeing whether or not you can extract new flecks of gold out of old stories. A writer can't afford to just sit there and write about realities as they are. He has to dig deeply into the great issues of all time.
