INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM FOR The Lieutenant
“Grenville makes an unforgettable, poignant drama out of the exercises of naming…and gets at something much more complex: language as a map of a relationship, a ‘leap’ into the other.”—The Globe and Mail
“Another dazzling and disturbing achievement…Grenville’s descriptions of the encounters between Rooke and the Gadigal, especially a young girl called Tagaran, are wonderfully shimmering and authentic.”—Weekend Herald
“The Lieutenant is…the richly imagined portrait of a deeply introspective, and quite remarkable, man.”—The New York Times
“Grenville’s craft is, as always, astounding, deftly melding subject and metaphor, story and image…The Lieutenant succeeds beautifully.”—Canberra Times (Pick of the crop for 2008)
“It glows with life: imaginative in its recreations, respectful of what cannot be imagined, and thoughtful in its interrogation of the past…Grenville’s most intellectually sophisticated novel to date.”—The Age (Australia)
“Grenville’s portrait of the obtuse yet engaging Rooke and her description of this strange territory are marvellously evocative.”—Boston Globe
“Grenville inhabits characters with a rare completeness…She occupies the mind of Rooke with a kind of vivid insistence, and his isolation—and moral dilemmas—become ours…She writes with a poet’s sense of rhythm and imagery.”—The Guardian
“A compelling narrative…An intelligent, spare, always engrossing imagining of first contact.”—The Times Literary Supplement
“A particular kind of stillness marks Kate Grenville’s characters out as uniquely hers…Between the words and among them, this is a profoundly uplifting novel.”—The Independent (UK)
“In lucid prose and perfectly measured strides, Grenville lays down her riveting tale. A novel aglow with empathy, its author’s capacious visions still deliver an elemental thrill.”—Daily Mail (London)
“Dry, exact and lust all at once, this book is Grenville at her best.”—West Australian