AustLit

The plot of the novel is a fanciful variation on the legend of the Monkey King. In Stivens's recasting of the tale, the ingenious and rebellious Monkey is sent by the Immortals on a redemptive mission to the Southern Continent, charged with the task of bringing four saints back to the Jade Emperor and the Buddha. Accompanied by the gross Pigsy, Monkey lands in what is plainly a satirical representation of 1960s Australia to commence a series of adventures in the manner of Gulliver's Travels (1726) or Candide (1759). He can find only two potential saints on the entire continent: Jed Kell Lee (a miraculous resurrection of the nineteenth century bushranger Ned Kelly) and Gros Simonyi, a wise and humble old man recently arrived from Europe. Monkey therefore extends his search to a whole range of contemporary societies--satirical versions of nations such as the United States, Britain and South Africa. (Harry Heseltine 'Dal Stivens December 31, 1911-June 15, 1997', Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 260: Australian Writers, 1915-1950. (2002)).