AustLit

'In 1977, twenty-seven-year-old Robyn Davidson set off with a dog and four camels to cross 1,700 miles of Australian desert to the sea.

'A life of almost constant travelling followed. From the deserts of Australia, to Sydney's underworld; from Sixties street life, to the London literary scene; from migrating with nomads in Tibet, to 'marrying' an Indian prince, Davidson's quest was motivated by an unquenchable curiosity about other ways of seeing and understanding the world.

'Davidson threw bombs over her shoulder and seeds into her future on the assumption that something would be growing when she got there. The only terrain she had no interest in exploring was the past.

'In Unfinished Woman Davidson turns at last to explore that long avoided country. Through this brave and revealing memoir, she delves into her childhood and youth to uncover the forces that set her on her path, and confront the cataclysm of her early loss.

'Unfinished Woman is an unforgettable investigation of time and memory, and a powerful interrogation of how we can live with and find beauty in the uncertainty and strangeness of being.' (Publication summary)

'History is the present, they say, and every generation writes it anew. Not just generations, but new contestants in the historical narrative of any country - conquerors and conquered, dominators and dominated. The same holds true for the study of the human past through its material remains: archaeology.' (Introduction)