A book about former Tasmanian timber giant Gunns has taken out a major award as part of the Premier’s Literary Prize. Source: ABC News
Author and academic Quentin Beresford won the $25,000 Tasmania Book Prize for his forensic work The Rise and Fall of Gunns Limited.
The judges called it a difficult and painful story which had an impact on all aspects of Tasmanian politics and society.
Mr Beresford said that was why he decided to write it.
“I was reading about fast-track legislation being put through in the Tasmanian Parliament, about the pulp mill, and I just had a light bulb moment about the way in which politics is so susceptible to the influence of corporations and vested interests,” he said. The book was seven years in the making,” he said.
“This is a massive corporation. It had its tentacles in all parts of politics and all parts of the commercial operations of this island, and many people could have written it, but everybody would write it with their own particular backgrounds and insights.”
