Out Of Ireland

Description

This masterful novel tells the story of a man who suffers exile through fighting for the future of his people. A leader of the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, Robert Devereux is an Irish gentleman who is prepared to hazard a life of privilege in the fight for his country's freedom. Transported to Van Diemen's Land as a political prisoner, he enters a life that greatly changes him, falling in love with a young Irish convict woman. Through Kathleen O'Rahilly he comes to know the people he's long romanticised; but his cause, and the life he has lost, will not let him go.

Christopher Koch is of Irish, English and German ancestry. For a good deal of his life he was a broadcasting producer, working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Sydney. He has lived and worked in London and elsewhere overseas. He has been a full-time writer since 1972, winning international praise and a number of awards for his novels - many of which are translated in a number of European countries. His novel, The Year of Living Dangerously, was made into a successful Hollywood film starring Mel Gibson and nominated for a Golden Palm at Cannes in 1983. And in 1995, Koch was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature.

These novels (Out of Ireland and Highways to a War) will surely become Australian classics -- Robert Gray * The Australian's Review of Books * Robert Devereux is a splendid literary invention. Koch is magnificent in Out of Ireland... he has englarged our understanding of the capabilities of fiction -- Michael Sharkey * Daily Telegraph (Sydney) * When you have read Out of Ireland you will have joined a circle of friends who lived and loved and struggled 150 years ago, and you will wonder how long it will be before you will read as great and compelling a book again -- Richard O'Brien, Ambassador of Ireland to Australia Some of the finest writing in Australian fiction * The Australian's Review of Books *