Meet The Authors: June

NEWS FLASH: Internationally acclaimed Swedish author Henning Mankell was on a small boat in a flotilla stormed in the Mediterranean by the Israeli navy at the end of May, on the way to protest against Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. At least nine people were killed as the flotilla came under fire, and Mankell was arrested and detained along with other protesters. Before joining the flotilla in Cyprus, the 62-year-old writer said on Swedish radio that he took part to demonstrate his solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza: ‘I think that when one talks about solidarity, one must always know that actions are what proves destiny. It is with actions that we prove we are ready to support something we believe is important.’ Henning Mankell returned to Sweden on the first of this month. His most recent novel to feature in Select Editions was The Pyramid, a story featuring his world-famous detective, Kurt Wallander. Click here to read an extract showing Kurt Wallander in action in somewhat unusual circumstances.

Author of the Month

Peter Grose
Peter Grose is a former publisher at Secker & Warburg, founder of the Curtis Brown Literary Agency in Australia, and was until recently the chairman of ACP (UK). The first book he wrote on Australian wartime history was A Very Rude Awakening about the night in 1942 when three Japanese midget submarines crept into Sydney Harbour. When his interest extended to what happened in Darwin in February 1942, he uncovered a wealth of information that was simply not made available to Australians at the time, and soon became determined that he would enlighten today’s readers in a new book. The result was An Awkward Truth, the amazing story that comes out in Encounters this month.

It begins on 19 February 1942, when the first wartime assault on Australian soil struck the city of Darwin. The Japanese air attack was made by the same carrier-borne force that devastated Pearl Harbor only ten weeks earlier. The raid led to the worst death toll from any event in Australia, yet the full truth about the successive air raids, and the administrative incompetence that followed on the ground, has remained in the shadows—until now.

As a Sydney Morning Herald article put it: ‘Peter Grose’s compelling book makes the remarkable claim that more aircraft attacked Darwin in the first wave than attacked Pearl Harbor in the first wave; more bombs fell on Darwin than on the US Naval target; and more ships were sunk in Darwin than in Hawaii.’ We commend Peter Grose for telling the astonishing and tragic story of what really happened as bombs rained down on Darwin and its harbour, and of the motley bunch of soldiers and civilians who were left to defend a nation.

Silver hairs and golden memories — writers who publish late in life

Congratulations to Australian Glenda Guest, winner of the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize for First Book. Guest, now in her 60s, said she felt like ‘a stunned mullet’ on hearing the news. Siddon Rock, which takes a quirky, magic-tinged look at a small outback Australian town, is published by Random House.

Not long ago we featured in Select Editions a delightful novel by Mary Ann Shaffer, another silver-haired writer who finished her first novel in her mature years. Sadly, she died not long after it was accepted, but it was completed for publication by her niece, Annie Barrows. Barrows said of her aunt: ‘Without doubt, my most striking memory is an image of her sitting at her dining-room table with a cup of cold coffee beside her and a book in her hand. She read more than anyone I ever met. But she was also a great talker and storyteller, plus being the only person I have ever seen fall out of a chair laughing.’

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Peel Pie Society, which became a worldwide best-seller, appeared in Select Editions in October 2009.