The Unknown Industrial Prisoner: Text Classics

Discover 'The Unknown Industrial Prisoner: Text Classics', a powerful novel by David Ireland that dissects the dehumanizing industrial landscape of Australia. This compelling narrative, first published in 1971, won the Miles Franklin Award for its satirical yet haunting portrayal of life within a sprawling oil refinery. Set against the backdrop of Clearwater, where workers navigate an unrelenting economy, the book offers readers an insightful exploration of alienation and labor. The stark realities faced by 250 workers, overseen by an array of foremen and supervisors, serve as a profound commentary on the human condition within an industrial system. David Ireland’s masterful storytelling and sharp wit create an unforgettable reading experience. This B-format paperback edition from The Text Publishing Company, published in 2013, includes an enlightening introduction by Peter Pierce, further enriching your journey through this poignant tale. With 464 pages of thought-provoking content, 'The Unknown Industrial Prisoner' is a must-read for anyone interested in literature that tackles themes of labor exploitation and social justice. Enhance your bookshelf today with this literary gem that highlights the struggles of the working class in a capitalist world. Enjoy FREE shipping on your order, but please note combined shipping for other products is not available with this item. Allow up to 10 days for delivery of this important work that resonates with contemporary issues in industrial society. Don't miss out on this opportunity to reflect on our industrial adolescence through Ireland's eyes.

Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9781922147066
Format: B-format paperback
Year: 2013
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Pages: 464


Description:
What was Puroil? At Clearwater it was a sprawling refinery, an army of white shirts, a fleet of wagons, a number of apparently separate companies, dozens of monolithic departments protected from each other by an armour of functional difference and jealousy. On the refinery site it was two hundred and fifty shabby prisoners, a heavy overload of foremen, supervisors, plant controllers, shift controllers, up to the giddy height of section heads (popularly miscalled Suction Heads, a metaphor deriving from pumps) who were clerks for the technologists; project and process engineers and superintendents who were whipping-boys for the - whisper it! - the Old Man himself, the Manager, who was actually only a Branch Manager and a sort of bum-boy for Head Office in Victoria, which was a backward colonial outpost in the eyes of the London office, which was a junior partner in British-European Puroil its mighty self, which was the property of anonymous shareholders. On the shores of Botany Bay lies an oil refinery where workers are free to come and go - but they are also part of an unrelenting, alienating economy from which there is no escape. In the first of his three Miles Franklin Award-winning novels, originally published in 1971, David Ireland offers a fiercely brilliant comic portrait of Australia in the grip of a dehumanising labour system. 'It has been my aim to take apart, then build up piece by piece, this mosaic of one kind of human life...... to remind my present age of its industrial adolescence.' David Ireland This edition of The Unknown Industrial Prisoner comes with an introduction by Peter Pierce.

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