Tom Keneally

A brilliant recreation of the first four years of white settlement in Australia by Booker Prize-winning author Tom Keneally. In 1787, Britain banished its unwanted citizens—uneducated petty thieves, streetwalkers, orphan chimney-sweeps, and dashing highwaymen—to the fringes of the known world. So remote was Botany Bay, the destination to which the overcrowded, disease-ridden convict ships were bound, that only one European...

The Ink Stain by Meg Keneally and Tom Keneally takes readers on a gripping journey as Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney are dispatched to Sydney to investigate corruption that threatens the very core of the colony's fundamental rights, including freedom of speech, potentially implicating the governor's office. Henry Hallward, the determined editor of the Sydney Chronicle, is no stranger to imprisonment...

'A masterpiece.' A.N. WILSON In the tradition of Atonement and Birdsong, The Daughters of Mars follows the Durance sisters as they leave Australia to nurse on the front during WWI and discover a world beyond their imaginings. Inspired by the journals of Australian nurses who gave their all to the Great War effort and the men they nursed, The Daughters...

A timely, courageous and powerful novel about faith, the church, conscience and celibacy. Tom Keneally, ex-seminarian, pulls no punches as he interrogates the terrible damage done to innocents as the Catholic Church has prevaricated around language and points of law, covering up for its own. Ex-communicated to Canada due to his radical preaching on the Vietnam War and other human...

If the legendary Schindler's List was not enough to showcase Thomas Keneally's literary mastery, then Shame and the Captives surely will. NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Will keeping the Japanese, Korean, and Italian POWs of the Second World War alive in Australia keep Australian POWs alive and well wherever they are? Tom Keneally brilliantly explores the intimacies of ordinary lives being...

From the Booker-winning author of Schindler's Ark, a compelling and spirited novel about Charles Dickens' son and his little-known adventures in the Australian Outback. In the late 1800s, rather than run the risk of your under-achieving children tarnishing your reputation at home, you sent them to the colonies. At least that is what Charles Dickens did with two of his...

At the world's end, it is Sunday afternoon in February. Through the edge of the forest a soldier moves without any idea he's caught in a mesh of sunlight and shade. Corporal Halloran's this fellow's name. He's a lean boy taking long strides through the Sabbath heat. A South Pacific penal colony in the late eighteenth century. An honest man...

Winner of the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Prize. How did Corporal Hitler's Luger from the First World War end up being the weapon that killed an IRA turncoat in Kempsey, New South Wales, in 1933? When an affluent Kempsey matron spots a young Aboriginal boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband, not only does she scream for divorce,...

Whilst living in exile on St Helena, Napoleon exerted an extraordinary influence on young Betsy Balcombe. How did she get from Napoleon's side to the Australian bush? When Tom Keneally discovered by chance at the National Gallery of Victoria that Betsy Balcombe, a young girl living on St Helena while the Emperor Napoleon was exiled there, had become the Emperor's...

Being the skipper of the cutter that carries all supplies and communications between Tasmania and Maria Island is a powerful position, and a deadly one. When a boatman is murdered on a remote island off Van Dieman's Land, the authorities want to blame a famous, and very inconvenient, political prisoner. But the victim's history of blackmail prompts Monsarrat to look...

In the Port Macquarie penal settlement for second offenders, at the edge of the known world, gentleman convict Hugh Monsarrat hungers for freedom. Originally transported for forging documents and passing himself off as a lawyer, he is now the trusted clerk of the settlement's commandant. His position has certain advantages, such as being able to spend time in the Government...

You don't need me to tell you Keneally is a brilliant storyteller, but with Fanatic Heart he proves it once again. ARTS HUB 'The novel's resonance for our time is deafening.' THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD A retelling of the life and exploits of Irish patriot John Mitchel, with a particular focus on his time in exile on Van Diemen's Land....

A subtle examination of heroism ... This clever, compelling novel asks some uncomfortable questions Penelope Lively, The Guardian To be a hero's wife in times supposedly suited to the heroic caused a woman to swallow doubt. I knew in general terms I was marrying a hero. The burden lay lightly on Leo, and to be a hero's wife in times...

Not all murder victims are mourned, but the perpetrator must always be punished... For Robert Church, superintendent of the Parramatta Female Factory, the most enjoyable part of his job is access to young convict women. Inmate Grace O'Leary has made it her mission to protect the women from his nocturnal visits, and when Church is murdered with an awl thrust...

Artem Samsurov, a charismatic protégé of Lenin and an ardent socialist, reaches sanctuary in Australia after escaping his Siberian labour camp and making a long, perilous journey via Japan. But Brisbane in 1911 turns out not to be quite the workers' paradise he was expecting, or the bickering local Russian émigrés a model of brotherhood. As Artem helps organise a...

The eagerly awaited paperback of an incredible work of history, highlighting social injustice and survival. "...a grandly conceived and prodigiously researched homage to his Irish forebears" — The Age "...the range and coverage of this material is impressive ...his zest is infectious" — Sydney Morning Herald "...engaging and meticulously compiled" — Australian Financial Review In the nineteenth century, the Irish...

In 1980, Tom Keneally was in Beverly Hills returning from the Sorrento film festival where The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith had been showing. Looking for a new briefcase, Tom meets the Polish-Jewish Leopold Pfefferberg Page, aka Poldek. His life for the next few years is taken over by this charismatic and driven man and the story he wants shared. The...

In the tradition of Atonement and Birdsong, the Durance sisters leave Australia to nurse on the front during WWI and discover a world beyond their imaginings. The Daughters of Mars was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Prize. Naomi and Sally Durance are daughters of a dairy farmer from the Macleay Valley. Bound together in complicity by what they consider a...

Will keeping the Japanese, Korean and Italian POWs of the Second World War alive in Australia keep Australian POWs alive and well wherever they are? In the spirit of The Daughters of Mars, Tom Keneally's new novel brilliantly explores the intimacies of ordinary lives being played out against momentous world events. In Gawell, New South Wales, a prisoner-of-war camp to...

In an oil-rich country terrorised by a tyrant known as The Great Uncle, war veteran and celebrated writer Alan Sheriff has a better life than most until his beautiful and beloved actress wife Sarah dies — and he is made an offer he can't refuse. He must write a great novel in three months — or else. If the writer...

Murder, love, and politics in Civil War America. On the last, cold Sunday of February 1859, Daniel Sickles shot his wife's lover in Washington's Lafayette Square, just across from the White House. This is the story of that killing and its repercussions. Charming and ambitious, Dan Sickles literally got away with murder. His protector was none other than the President...

Winner of the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Prize. How did Corporal Hitler's Luger from the First World War end up being the weapon that killed an IRA turncoat in Kempsey, New South Wales, in 1933? When an affluent Kempsey matron spots a young Aboriginal boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband, not only does she scream for divorce,...

To be a hero's wife in times supposedly suited to the heroic caused a woman to swallow doubt. I knew in general terms I was marrying a hero. The burden lay lightly on Leo, and to be a hero's wife in times supposedly suited to the heroic caused a woman to swallow doubt. The Japanese had barely been turned away....

Winner of the 1968 Miles Franklin Award. From the moment he allows his young cousin and bride to spend the night in his room, Father Maitland causes raised eyebrows and dark mutterings amongst the brothers at St Peter's. Time and again, his efforts to do the right thing for his fellow men lead him into conflict with his superiors and...

The Place at Whitton, Tom Keneally's first novel, is a psychological mystery published after his time in a seminary. Fifty years on, this anniversary edition is released with a new author's note about the novel and his fifty years of writing. In the shocking dirt of the cement floor, Wally lay now, indiscriminately felled amongst the piglets, prostrate on his...