Xavier Herbert

Capricornia

'Poor Fellow My Country is an Australian classic, perhaps THE Australian classic' - The Times Literary Supplement. From Australia's oldest publisher comes the longest Australian novel ever published. The winner of the 1975 Miles Franklin Award is now back in print with a new introduction by Russell McDougall. In Poor Fellow My Country, Xavier Herbert returns to the region made his own in Capricornia: Northern Australia. Ranging over a period of some six years, the story is set during the late 1930s and early 1940s; but it is not so much a tale of this period as Herbert's analysis and indictment of the steps by which we came to the Australia of today. Herbert parallels an intimate personal narrative with a tale of approaching war and the disconnect between modern Australia and its first inhabitants. With enduring portraits of a large cast of local and international characters, Herbert paints a scene of racial, familial and political disparity. He lays bare the paradoxes of this wild land, both old and wise, young and flawed. Winner of the Miles Franklin award on first publication in 1975, Poor Fellow My Country is masterful storytelling, an epic in the truest sense. This is the decisive story of how Australia threw away her chance of becoming a true commonwealth and it is undoubtedly Herbert's supreme contribution to Australian literature. Will we ever reach the dream of 'Australia Felix' - the happy south land?

Poor Fellow My Country

Seven Emus Station lies in the wild, red sandstone country back of the north-west port of Dampier. It is the prized property of Bronco Jones, his wife Possum and their bright, honey-coloured brood. The wealth of the property lures Appleby Gaunt, 'The Baron' who sweeps Bronco into a series of ruinous financial deals. Goborrow, a second-rate anthropologist, seizes the predicament as a means to boost his own credibility, with disastrous results for himself and 'The Baron'. An experimental novella, Seven Emus deals with issues of identity, ancestral fidelity and the misguided appropriation of cultural artefacts.

Seven Emus

A saga of life in the Northern Territories and the clash of white and Aborigine cultures – one of Australia’s all-time best-selling novels and an inspiration for Baz Luhrmann’s lavish film ‘AUSTRALIA’.

Russell McDougall

This collection draws together all stories produced by the Australian author Xavier Herbert prior to the publication of his most famous novel, Capricornia, in 1938. Many of the works presented here were originally published in obscure periodicals, often under one of the author's pseudonyms.

Xavier Herbert

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