Beneath a waterfall on the Franklin, Aljaz Cosini, river guide, lies drowning.
Beset by visions at once horrible and fabulous, he relives not just his own life but that of his family and forebears. In the rainforest waters that rush over him he sees those lives stripped of their surface realities, and finds a world where dreaming reasserts its power over thinking. As the river rises, his visions grow more turbulent, and in the flood of his past Aljaz discovers the soul history of his country.
By Richard Flanagan, 1994
Richard Flanagan was born in Tasmania, spending some time in his childhood living on the West Coast. He won the Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North in 2014.