Eye of the Needle

In 1882 a young Afghan named Kadir lands in Port Augusta. He has arrived with six camels to make his fortune, and so becomes the transport for a scientific expedition into the red centre.

More than a century later a young man named Kris comes of age in the Melbourne suburbs, having emigrated from India with his family when he was just a boy. After the trauma of his father’s mysterious death, Kris gravitate to St Kilda in search of a bigger world.

Fate will lead Kris to drugs and sex and love. He will learn what it truly takes to write a novel about the visionary life: the tale of a cameleer who comes across the seas from Asia and is drawn into the dazzling heart of the continent, where all is revealed—the ancient peoples, power and possession, lies and lust, death, love and what really matters.

Across time and space, Kris’s and Kadir’s ecstatic and devastating journeys weave through Christopher Raja’s unexpected page-turner, Eye of the Needle.

‘Fine crafting and luminous phrasing…are manifest in every chapter…insightful and inspiring in equal measure.’ Eureka Street

‘Raja creates palpable tension across both these storylines…and makes the reader fear for the fates awaiting Kadir and Kris.’ Readings