The Great Shame

Description

The eagerly-awaited paperback of an incredible work of history, h social injustice and survival '...a grandly conceived and prodigiously researched homage to his Irish forebears' The Age '...the range and coverage of this material is impressive ...his zest is infectious' Sydney Morning Herald '...engaging and meticulously compiled' Australian Financial Review In the nineteenth century, the Irish population was halved. The Great Shame is Thomas Keneally's astonishing work of non-fiction which traces the three causes of this depletion- the famine; the emigrations; and the transportations to Australia. Based on unique research among little-used sources, this masterly book traces eighty years of Irish history, told through the intimate lens of political prisoners - some of them Keneally's ancestors who served time as convicts in Australia. Beginning with Hugh Larkin, a twe

THOMAS KENEALLY won the Booker Prize in 1982 with SCHINDLER S ARK, later made into the Academy Award-winning film SCHINDLER S LIST by Steven Spielberg. He has written eleven works of non-fiction, including THREE FAMINES and his recent memoir SEARCHING FOR SCHINDLER, and the histories THE COMMONWEALTH OF THIEVES, THE GREAT SHAME and AMERICAN SCOUNDREL, and 29 works of fiction, including THE PEOPLE S TRAIN, THE WIDOW AND HER HERO (both shortlisted for the Prime Minister s Literary Award), AN ANGEL IN AUSTRALIA and BETTANY'S BOOK. His novels THE CHANT OF JIMMY BLACKSMITH, GOSSIP FROM THE FOREST, and CONFEDERATES were all shortlisted for the Booker Prize, while BRING LARKS AND HEROES and THREE CHEERS FOR THE PARACLETE won the Miles Franklin Award. His most recent novel THE PEOPLE S TRAIN was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, South East Asia division.