Randolph Stow

In 1941, Rob Coram is six. The war feels far removed from Geraldton in Western Australia. But when his favourite older cousin Rick leaves to join the army, the war takes a step closer. When Rick returns several years later, he has changed and the old merry-go-round that represents Rob's dream of utopia begins to disintegrate before his eyes. The...

Crispin Clare returns to his ancestral home in Suffolk to recover from a tropical disease he contracted while working in the Pacific. His life is now one of quiet mornings and peaceful afternoons spent in the garden. Suffering physically and psychologically, Clare turns to writing as a source of therapy. Intrigued by the local folklore, he re-examines his life and...

In the quiet seafaring town of Tornwich, little goes unnoticed. Neighbourhood gossip spreads like wildfire, leaving few skeletons in closets. But late one night, a man is shot dead in his home. A short time later, another body is discovered. The town is gripped by fear. The finger of blame is pointed in all directions. False accusations and outlandish charges...

Exhausted and losing faith, an Anglican minister flees his mission in Australia's northwest for the vast emptiness of the outback. In the soul country of the desert, the old man searches for the islands of the Aboriginal dead, reflecting on past transgressions and on his life's work. A Lear-like tale of madness and destruction, published when Randolph Stow was only...

Once prosperous, the town of Tourmaline in outback Western Australia is dying. The mines are drying up, and the land is riddled by drought. Those townspeople left have little to do but while away the hours with drink. Salvation of sorts arrives in the form of Michael Random, a mysterious water diviner who emerges from the desert. As the town's...

When Patrol Officer Alistair Cawdor commits suicide on a small island off New Guinea a colonial inquest is launched. Five witnesses are called to give testimony: the government interpreter, the territory's cadet officer, a planter who claims ownership of the island, one of his servants and the son of the local chief. Each has a disturbing story to tell. Cawdor's...

Midnite is a not-so-wild and not-too-bright colonial boy. When he becomes an orphan, his animal friends decide he should be a bushranger. But bushranging isn't easy either. An hilarious, classic Australian novel.

In The Land's Meaning, John Kinsella brings together selected works of one of Australia's finest modernist poets. Including previously uncollected pieces, the volume's wide-ranging introduction provides a rich context for the work of this extraordinary and important poet in the most comprehensive collection of Stow's work to date. Alternately prolific and silent, Randolph Stow won the Miles Franklin Literary Award...