Bryce Courtenay

During the Great Depression there was little hope for a boy born into the slums of Cabbagetown, Toronto. But Jack Spayd is offered a ticket out in the form of a Hohner harmonica, won by his brutal drunken father in a late-night card game. Jack makes music as a way of escaping his surroundings, and his talent leads him to...

Tandia sat waiting anxiously for the fight to begin between the man she loved the most and the man she hated the most in the world. Tandia is a child of Africa - half Indian, half African, beautiful and intelligent. She is only sixteen when she is first brutalised by the police. Her fear of the white man leads her...

Jessica is based on the inspiring true story of a young girl's fight for justice against tremendous odds. A tomboy, Jessica is the pride of her father, as they work together on the struggling family farm. One quiet day, the peace of the bush is devastated by a terrible murder. Only Jessica is able to save the killer from the...

First with your head and then with your heart... To Peekay, a seven-year-old boy who dreams of being the welterweight champion of the world, this is a piece of advice that he will carry with him throughout his life. Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, this one small boy will come to lead all the tribes...

In the end, love is more important than everything and it will conquer and overcome anything. Or that's how Damon saw it, anyway. Damon wanted a book that talked a lot about love. Damon Courtenay died on the morning of April Fool's Day. In this tribute to his son, Bryce Courtenay lays bare the suffering behind this young man's life....

In a small town like any other small town around Australia live the Maloneys. They are a fifth-generation Australian family of Irish Catholic descent who are struggling to reach the first rung of the social ladder. The Maloneys are a family you won't forget: a strong mother, a father broken by war, three boys and two girls, one of whom...

The story of a drunk, a boy and a cat. Billy O'Shannessy, once a prominent barrister, is now on the streets where he sleeps on a bench outside the State Library. Above him on the windowsill rests a bronze statue of Matthew Flinders' cat, Trim. Ryan is a ten-year-old near-street kid heading for the usual trouble. The two form an...

A Vietnam vet returns to an Australia that regards him as a mercenary guilty of war crimes. Thommo begins to develop all kinds of physical and mental problems, and thinks it must only be him until he finds that he is not alone. Ten mates, all who remain of his platoon, are affected in the same way. Now Thommo and...

Mrs Moses is a small woman with a big heart and enormous courage. The only survivor of a Cossack raid on her village, she takes with her a big cast-iron frying pan, so heavy that she can only sling it over her back. Yet this is no ordinary frying pan—it's the Family Frying Pan, blessed with a Russian soul. From...

Inspired by real events, Brother Fish tells the story of three people from vastly differing backgrounds. All they have in common is a tough beginning in life. Jack McKenzie is a harmonica player, soldier, dreamer, and small-time professional fisherman from a tiny island in Bass Strait. Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan is a strong-willed woman hiding from an ambiguous past in Shanghai. Larger...

Damon Courtenay died on the morning of April Fool's Day. In this tribute to his son, Bryce Courtenay lays bare the suffering behind this young man's life. Damon's story is one of lifelong struggle, his love for Celeste, the compassion of family, and a fight to the end for integrity. A testimony to the power of love, April Fool's Day...

Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, little six-year-old Peekay learns that small can beat big. Armed with this knowledge, he resolves to take on the injustices of his country and sets his heart on becoming the welterweight champion of the world. Peekay starts to take boxing lessons, makes new friends, collects cacti, and plays the piano....

Simon Koo is an ambitious Australian-born Chinese who goes to Singapore in the mid-sixties to work for an advertising agency. But the Wing brothers, who run the agency, are not what they seem. There is soon trouble when Simon falls in love with the forbidden Mercy B. Lord. With no family or connections, this beautiful young woman is powerless to...

This is the story of two families—branches of the Solomons—transported to an alien land, both of whom eventually grow rich and powerful but who, through three generations, never for one moment relinquish their hatred for each other. It is also the story of our country from the beginning until we came of age as a nation. I have learned a...

I am Sylvia Honeyeater; I think myself born around 1196, and this is the story of my life. From master storyteller Bryce Courtenay comes the colourful epic of Sylvia. Late twelfth-century Europe is torn by religious intolerance. Sylvia, with a singing voice that can literally charm the birds out of the trees, and an acute and questioning mind that refuses...

It is 1942 in the Dutch East Indies, and Nick Duncan is a young Australian butterfly collector in search of a single exotic butterfly. With invading Japanese forces coming closer by the day, Nick falls in love with the beguiling Anna van Heerden. Their time together is brief, as both are forced into separate, dangerous escapes. They plan to reunite...

Ikey Solomon's favourite saying is also his way of doing business. And in the business of thieving, he's very successful indeed. Ikey's partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them. They are parted and each must make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth-century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land. In the...

First with your head and then with your heart ... To Peekay, a seven-year-old boy who dreams of being the welterweight champion of the world, this is a piece of advice that he will carry with him throughout his life. Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, this one small boy will come to lead all the...

In the aftermath of the Great Depression, few opportunities existed for working-class boys, but at just eighteen, Danny Dunn has everything going for him—brains, looks, sporting ability—and an easy charm. His parents run The Hero, a neighbourhood pub, and Danny is a local hero. Luck changes for Danny when he signs up to go to war. He returns home a...

Bryce Courtenay has created an unforgettable story of the enduring bond between two brothers. Brutally kidnapped and separated in childhood, Tommo and Hawk are reunited at the age of fifteen in Hobart Town. Together they escape their troubled pasts and set off on a journey into manhood. From whale hunting in the Pacific to the Maori wars of New Zealand,...

The Power of One has everything: suspense, the exotic, violence; mysticism, psychology and magic; schoolboy adventures, drama. –The New York Times Unabashedly uplifting... asserts forcefully what all of us would like to believe: that the individual, armed with the spirit of independence—'the power of one'—can prevail. –Cleveland Plain Dealer In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the...