The Book of Fame

Winner of the Tasmania Prize and the Deutz Medal for fiction this is a singular melding of history and imagination.


In August 1905 a party of young men boarded a ship for England. Among them were four farmers, two bootmakers and a boatbuilder. They set out from Auckland, never dreaming they would conquer the world. By December they were the 'wonderful All Blacks' who had beaten Yorkshire, England and Ireland.


They were a tribe far from home, weary, bedazzled, a little lost-but the world showed them wonders: the Eiffel Tower, snow on Tierra del Fuego, English lords, Consommé Sarah Bernhardt. America! But years later, it was something else that remained indelible. A feeling shared, grave and simple, that survived all the acclaim.


'It's a book about blokes, bluff outside, but discerning inside, blokes who speak poetry, the way we all would speak if we could put our finest feelings into words…It's a beautiful book: complete, strong and poetic.' Bulletin