A Room Made of Leaves
Kate Grenville
“Even that word, the, the least regarded word in the language, strikes me as absurd. How can there be the history? Beyond one the, watertight and trim, lies another, just as watertight, just as trim.”
Available as eBook, Downloadable audio
The beautifully wrought new novel – from the Man Booker prize-shortlisted author of The Secret River – tells a story of passion and resilience, giving voice to a woman silenced by history; shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION – the new novel from the Women’s Prize for Fiction winner and Man Booker prize-shortlisted author of The Secret River
It is 1788. When twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth marries the arrogant and hot-headed soldier John Macarthur, she soon realises she has made a terrible mistake. Forced to travel with him to New South Wales, she arrives to find Sydney Town a brutal, dusty, hungry place of makeshift shelters, failing crops, scheming and rumours. All her life she has learned to fold herself up small. Now, in the vast landscapes of an unknown continent, Elizabeth has to discover a strength she never imagined, and passions she could never express.
Inspired by the real life of a remarkable woman, this is an extraordinarily rich, beautifully wrought novel of resilience, courage and the mystery of human desire.
“Beautifully written, insistently eloquent and expressive of connection … [a] stunning literary achievement”
guardian
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“Kate Grenville spins a delicately teasing novel about the inherent untrustworthiness of the official record … beautiful and subtle”
financial Times
“Grenville cleverly uses Elizabeth’s bland and pleasant missives home, showing that they were a carefully constructed fiction. The real Elizabeth — passionate, clever and endlessly resilient — is brilliantly conjured”
the Times
“Kate Grenville gives voice to this reticent woman, allowing her smart, sparky, shrewd heroine a chance “at last to speak” … eloquent [and] evocative”
daily Mail
“The absorbing story of a woman discovering herself in the vast expanse of a new world, told in rich, insightful prose”
sunday Times
Kate Grenville
Kate Grenville’s bestselling novel The Secret River received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize. Grenville’s other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian’s Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes History.
Kate Grenville’s official website
Kate Grenville’s website has information on all of her books – from her very first (the short story collection Bearded Ladies) to this year’s A Room Made of Leaves – as well as essays available to read now.