num_pages: 334
description: After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced in 1806 to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife, Sal, and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. But among the convicts there is a whisper that freedom can be bought, an opportunity to start afresh. Away from the infant township of Sydney, up the Hawkesbury River, are white men who have tried to do just that. But, as uninhabited as the island appears at first, Australia is full of native people, and they too claim the land as their own. Already a best-seller in Australia, The Secret River is the dramatic and potent story of Grenville’s ancestors, who wrested a new life from the alien terrain of Australia and its native people.
language: English
title: The Secret River
titlecomplete: The Secret River
characters: Kate Grenville, Ningali Lawford-Wolf
genres: Fiction, Historical, Australia, Book Club, School, Literature, Novels, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 22348
places: Australia, Dhirrumbim, New South Wales, New South Wales
series: Thornhill Family
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: New South Wales Premier's Literary Award
category: Christina Stead Prize for Fiction & Community Relations Commission Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Miles Franklin Literary Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Commonwealth Writers' Prize
category: Best Book Overall, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA)
category: Literary Fiction and for Book of the Year, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Nita B. Kibble Literary Award
publisher: Canongate Books