It’s not easy being an Australian author. A world away from the publishing hubs of London and New York, you tend to feel somewhat out of the literary loop. With a population of 17 million to draw from, your back-yard book-buying pool is a little shallow. Worst of all, you must suffer the slings and arrows of the Australian press — if you get any press at all.

"Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘the cultural cringe?’ " asks Richard Flanagan, sipping a beer at Boston’s Eliot Hotel. "It was coined in Australia to describe a certain attitude: that any culture from anywhere is always better than your own."

This sort of national self-deprecation can make life tricky for the Australian author, particularly if, like Flanagan, you’re a Tasmanian-Australian author. The island state of Tasmania — with its history as a British penal colony; its clannish, larrikin citizenry; its wild, largely unpopulated terrain — is viewed by many Australians as a cultural wasteland even more barren than the mainland.

"Being a writer from Tasmania is hard," Flanagan says, wriggling about in what appears to be a vain attempt to get comfortable. "For a long time, I couldn’t even get reviewed."

Over the last decade or so, Flanagan has gone a long way toward undermining unflattering Tazzie stereotypes, despite the fact that in many respects the cropped-haired, solidly built author fits the mold perfectly. He was born in the tiny town of Longford, in Northern Tasmania, to a working-class family (possum-snaring was not unheard of in the Flanagan clan). His ancestors were Irish convicts (a fact that will elicit a knowing nod from your average Sydneyite). And (of course, of course) he left school at 16 to work as a laborer. "My mum wanted me to be a plumber; I was hoping to be a carpenter," he says. "I got a job with a surveying company, doing bush work."

Eventually, Flanagan went against the grain. He enrolled in a local college and landed a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, which, as it turned out, was not an altogether-positive experience. "I used to get told time and time again, ‘Australians have no culture, Australians have no culture,’ " he recalls. "Some of my tutors used to call me The Convict." The incessant ribbing took its toll. "I felt like a fraud. I felt I wasn’t meant to be there." While his classmates departed Oxford with dreams of becoming diplomats, deans, and CEOs, Flanagan’s entry in the FUTURE EMPLOYMENT category in the Oxford register was "Roof Painter."

"The only job I had lined up when I came home," he explains, "was painting my mum and dad’s roof."

Today, Flanagan, who turned 40 last year, lives a comfortable life in Hobart, the Tasmanian capital, with his wife and three kids. Moreover, he has two prize-winning, best-selling novels under his belt — The Sound of One Hand Clapping (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000) and Death of a River Guide (Grove Press, 2001). With the publication of his third book last month — the sweeping, mesmerizing Gould’s Book of Fish: A Novel in 12 Fish (Grove Press) — he has firmly established himself as a novelist to be reckoned with. The Oxford people, he says, "write to me quite often now, asking if I want to update my entry." Still, he continues, Australian profilers almost always describe him as sporting a flannel shirt — whether he is wearing one or not.

And it gets worse. Last November, the Australian heavy-hitter critic Peter Craven described Gould’s Book of Fish as "a monstrosity." "I cannot believe," Craven fulminated, "that a novel like this has been put before the public with such a mishmash of verbal collisions, such lapses of judgment and such evasions of pace."

But Flanagan’s new book has also won him some powerful allies. In March, no less a figure than Michiko Kakutani, writing in the New York Times, called Flanagan "an indefatigable artist," and his book an "astonishing" work. The same month, the influential trade magazine Library Journal opined: "Flanagan may very well become Tasmania’s man of letters."

The author laughs at the compliment. "That," he says, "is a bit like being called ‘Scotland’s leading surfer.’ "

Nonetheless, Flanagan is confident that this sort of press — foreign press, that is — will help his cause at home. "Nothing succeeds with the literati of Sydney and Melbourne like success in New York," he says. "You can sell as many books as you like in Australia, but it’s only when someone from America or Europe says you’re good that you get noticed."