THE AUTHOR

ALAN Attwood was born in Scotland but has lived mainly in Australia. He has worked as an abalone packer, schoolbook salesman, mail-sorter and swimming instructor, but mainly as a journalist – specialising in not specialising. He has written for publications ranging from The Sunday Times, London, to Time magazine and Sports Illustrated and reported on events as different as the first free elections in South Africa, soccer in Northern Greece, political intrigue in Morocco, a US Presidential election, all major tennis tournaments and four Olympic Games. Between 1995–98 he was the New York-based correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers. He won a Walkley Award for coverage of sport in 1998. From 2006–16 he was Editor of The Big Issue magazine in Australia.

His previous novels include Sinking into Winter, shortlisted for The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1990, Breathing Underwater (1997) and Burke’s Soldier, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2004.