SEVEN books have been shortlisted for this year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction:
Today we look at ‘The Sun Walks Down’ Fiona McFarlane (Allen & Unwin Australia) and see what the judges thought.
“‘Fiona McFarlane has managed that rarest of things: in The Sun Walks Down, set in South Australia in settler times, she has taken the familiar story of a lost child and transformed it.
READ MORE: Find out what the judges thought of each book
“Against the backdrop of a landscape at once beautiful and alien, with the burning sun a character itself, the author deftly wrangles a dazzling array of characters, all trying to establish their place in the new, imagined settlement of Fairly, alongside the first nation experience.
“Adults and children alike transplant traditions from their old countries into this new, strange world as they navigate an uncertain and precarious future. In this rich and empathetic novel, Fiona McFarlane has offered the reader a key to understanding Australia.”
The winner will be announced at the Borders Book Festival in June
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