A Change in the Lighting

When her husband of three decades announces he has a younger lover and wants a divorce, Ella Ferguson realises how protected her life has been—she has ‘seen no evil, heard no evil and spoken no evil’. Alone, enraged, she must come to terms with her failed marriage and her relationships with her adult children. A Change in the Lighting, Amy Witting’s third novel, is the compelling story of a woman cast adrift.


Amy Witting was born in Annandale, an inner suburb of Sydney, in 1918. She attended Sydney University, then taught French and English in state schools. Beginning late in life she published six novels, including The Visit, I for Isobel, Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop and Maria’s War; two collections of short stories; two books of verse, Travel Diary and Beauty Is the Straw; and her Collected Poems.

She had numerous poems and short stories published in magazines such as Quadrant and the New Yorker.

Witting was awarded the 1993 Patrick White Prize. Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop won the Age Book of the Year Award.

Amy Witting died in 2001. 

‘A wry and powerful novel of family entanglements.’ Sydney Morning Herald