Winton is a Perth boy, grew up a Churches of Christ boy, still lives local (Freo) and more than any other writer I have read manages to grab something iside of me that gives me a feeling he knows me, my longings, my dreams, my pain. Someone once said Winton is about 3 w’s” Water, Western Australia and woe.
Maybe not far from the truth. Speaking of truth, I believe Winton also add a spirituality to his writing that is deep and raw. See the chapter in The Turning titled “The Turning” it is stunning.
TIM WINTON
Novelist
West Australian writer Tim Winton is consistently voted Australia’s most beloved storyteller. First from Albany, south of Perth, where the surf roared, and now from Fremantle, he pours out stories of the sea, of fatherhood, of strong women, of mad boys. It’s his language that readers fall in love with first, its cadences and rhythms, its smell, its intuitive feeling out of the pulse of ordinary life. Winton was a boy wonder, publishing his first novel An Open Swimmer while he was still at university, and writing nine further books in 10 years. Shallows made him, at 24, the youngest winner of the Miles Franklin Award. In his epic family saga Cloudstreet, published in 1991 and adapted in 1998 for the stage by Nick Enright and Justin Monjo, he wowed the world with his phenomenal capacity to enter the souls of working-class Australia. He followed up its success with The Riders and Dirt Music, both short-listed for the Booker Prize. Children love him, too – for the wicked joy of his Bugalugs Bum Thief and his Lockie Leonard series. In middle-age, Winton has become something of an environmental hero, donating his $25,000 prizemoney from the 2001 WA Premier’s Literary Award (for Dirt Music) to the successful campaign to save Ningaloo Reef from development.
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