Bryce Courtenay | Author

Bryce Courtenay
The Power of One, the Power of Words

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PUBLISHED: Nov.12.2007

The Persimmon Tree

The Persimmon Tree is unashamedly a love story. I've always wanted to write one but until now have been afraid to do so. The reason is simple enough: most men in my experience have very little idea of what really goes on in a woman's heart or head. Now, at the age of 74, I just might know enough and have sufficient courage to write on the subject - the way of a man with a woman, of...

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PUBLISHED: Feb.01.1989

The Power of One

I am told that The Power of One is the largest selling book within Australia by any living author. It remains published in eleven languages and has sold well over four million copies worldwide. It was my first book and is roughly the story of my early life in Africa. I had set out to write it as a practice book, never for one moment thinking it would be published. In lieu of a...

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.2008

Brother Fish

Brother Fish is an Australian saga spanning eighty years and four continents.Inspired by real events, Bryce Courtenay's new novel tells the story of three people from vastly differing backgrounds. All they have in common is a tough beginning in life. Jack McKenzie is a harmonica player, solider, dreamer and small-time professional fisherman from a tiny island in Bass Strait....

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.2008

Matthew Flinders' Cat

This is the story of a drunk, a boy and a cat. Billy O'Shannessy, once prominent in law circles, is now on the street where he sleeps on a bench underneath a window of the State Library on the sill of which rests a bronze statue of Matthew Flinders' cat, Trim. Ryan is a ten-year-old, a street kid heading for all the usual trouble and whose mother is a heroin addict. The two meet...

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.2008

Smokey Joe's Cafe

This is a novella and has the distinction of being both on the Internet as well as being published as a book. You may download it on www.ebooks.com or order the longer version as a conventional book. It tells the story of eleven Australian Vietnam Veterans and one ex-member of the North Vietnamese Army who are thoroughly disenchanted by the way they have been treated since their...

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.2008

Four Fires

In the small town of Yankalillee, the Maloneys were at the very bottom of the pecking order. Had been for generations, with firm predictions that they'd stay there forever . . . 1955. Tommy, unlike other fathers, never talked about the war, not even on Anzac Day, but it broke his spirit, good and proper. So it was up to his big, booming wife Nancy to bring up the five children -...

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PUBLISHED: Nov.15.2006

Sylvia

Sylvia is a story of the Children’s Crusade, which occurred in the year 1212. It is perhaps the strangest true event to have taken place in European history. I enjoyed the digging that uncovered it – buried in a dark corner of times long out of mind. It is also a story of how, throughout some of the darkest medieval times, the redeeming power and strength of a young woman’s love...

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PUBLISHED: Nov.03.2005

Whitehorn

This is a return to Africa for me, a revisiting of a past that wasn’t always easy, but which nevertheless gave my childhood a richness and understanding that served me well in later life. After ten books set in my beloved Australia, Whitethorn is back to that fierce and dark landscape where kindness and cruelty, love and hate share the same backyard. I do hope you enjoy it....

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.1999

Solomon's Song

This is the story of two families - branches of the Solomons - transported to an alien land, both of whom eventually grow rich and powerful but who, through three generations, never for one moment relinquish their hatred for each other. It is also the story of Australia from the beginning until Australia came of age as a nation. From Bryce: When I arrived in Australia from Africa...

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.1999

The Power of One (Young Readers Edition)

The Power of One for young readers came about after hundreds of requests by junior school teachers. While they used the original book for high school students, many felt that an abridged and simplified version could be created for younger students attempting their first serious book. I decided to try to adapt the book for this purpose and to use only the first half of The Power of...

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.1998

The Night Country

The Night Country is my shortest book. Another true story, it takes place at the age of five in Africa, but, please, I'd prefer you don't let anyone under the age of fifteen or sixteen read it, even though it has been called my finest writing. The Night Country is, to put it simply, a dark story, one I finally wrote in the hope that the nightmares, which had continued all my life,...

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.1998

Jessica

From Bryce: Some stories just present themselves. The story of Jessica came to me via a letter from a delightful lady named Margaret Duff. "I'd like to tell you the story of my Aunt Jessica," the letter began and continued for the next ten pages. I was so intrigued that I caught a plane and went to visit her in the small town where she lived. Then, over several weeks, I...

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.1995

The Potato Factory

Always leave a little salt on the bread... Ikey Solomon's favourite saying is also his way of doing business. And in the business of thieving, he's very successful indeed. Ikey's partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them. They are parted and each must make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth-century London to the convict...

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.1994

A Recipe for Dreaming

As one bumbles and stumbles one's way through life, if you're lucky you pick up a bit of wisdom or even plain commonsense on the way. I wrote A Recipe for Dreaming by mistake. Five young woman, four of them studying Medicine and one Law, came to see me one Friday afternoon. "We've all read The Power of One and we think you should tell us what to do with our lives," one of...

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PUBLISHED: Sep.25.1993

April Fool's Day

This is the hardest book I shall ever write. In fact, if I'd had my way it would never have been written. It is the story of Damon, my youngest son, who was born a haemophiliac and, at the age of seventeen, received a blood transfusion (among the many thousands he'd had in his life) except that this one contained the HIV virus. He died of AIDS six years later. Damon was so...

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PUBLISHED: May.01.1991

Tandia

Tandia is a sequel to The Power of One and people would often say, "it's a nice book, Bryce, but it lacks the enchantment of The Power of One." But then something strange started to happen, "Loved The Power of One," a letter from a reader would say, "but Tandia is my all time favourite!" While it hasn't sold as many as my first book (probably because...

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The Yowie Series

The Yowies are a series of six books: Rumble the Redgum Yowie Ditty the Lillipilli Yowie Crag the Mangrove Yowie Nap the Honeygum Yowie Boof the Bottlebrush Yowie Squish the Fiddlewood Yowie Yowies were actually invented by a very fine writer called Geoff Pike.Over nine years ago Geoff and I were sitting together reading the paper and on the front page was a picture of the...

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The Family Frying Pan

"What on earth is Bryce Courtenay doing writing a book set in Russia?" was how one critic began his review of The Family Frying Pan. Well, in truth, I think this is the best storytelling I have done and I can take almost no credit for it. The book is based on stories told to me by my wife's grandmother, Mrs Moses. She tells how, after the Cossacks had...

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PUBLISHED:

Tommo & Hawk

Join Australia's master storyteller Bryce Courtenay on the sweeping adventures of twin brothers Tommo and Hawk Solomon. Brutally kidnapped and separated in childhood, Tommo and Hawk are reunited at the age of 15 in Hobart Town. Together, they escape their troubled pasts and set off on a journey into manhood. From whale hunting in the Pacific to the Maori wars of New Zealand, from...

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Writing

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Article: An Interview with Bryce Courtenay

Article: Bryce, the Author, In His Words

About Bryce

I was born illegitimately in 1933 in South Africa and spent my early childhood years in a small town deep in the heart of the Lebombo Mountains. I wrote my first book, The Power of One, when I was 55. I grew up among farm folk and the African people. At the...

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Bryce CourtenayThe Power of One, the Power of Words

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About Bryce

Bryce Courtenay
The Power of One, the Power of Words