AustLit

'Though Ned Kelly popularly gets the title, Australia’s last bushrangers were Patrick and James Kenniff, horse and cattle thieves whose operations were at their height at the turn of the 20th century. In One, troops cannot pull the Kenniff Gang out of the ranges and plains of Western Queensland – the brothers know the terrain too well, and the locals are sympathetic to their escapades. A policeman and a station manager go out on patrol from tiny Upper Warrego Station and disappear. Sergeant Nixon makes it his mission to pursue the gang, especially, Jim Kenniff, who becomes for him an emblem of the violence that resides in the heart of the country.

'In the literary tradition of Cormac McCarthy and Peter Carey, One is a novel of lyrical beauty that traverses the intersections between violence and love. It is a love story that reveals the sometimes slippery nature of the truth. What right does a man have to impose his will on the world? Can the written law can ever answer the law of the heart?' (Publication summary)

'Navigatio tells the story of Saint Brendan of Clonfert, a sixth century monk and adventurer, and his legendary quest for the Isle of the Blessed via a gauntlet of monsters, devils, angels, prophets and beautiful maidens. Brendan's battles with the sea and the cosmos bear out what William Faulkner once called ‘the human heart in conflict with itself’. This haunting parable of darkness and light, of temptation and belief, of voice and silence, is told with the utmost economy of words, making it a small masterpiece of compassionate perception.' (Publication summary)