Sonya Hartnett

The style of Sonya Hartnett’s storytelling has changed considerably since she published Trouble All the Way (1984) at the age of fifteen: her finely groomed prose is much tighter than it was then. Her tales brim with nuance and, though straightforward, are disarmingly sophisticated; her weighty symbolism, saturating the most desiccated of landscapes, is one of the finest in our national literature. In an attempt to catalogue her original voice, Hartnett has often been classified as a children’s or young adult fiction writer, categories that she has resisted, often vehemently, for many years. Although her novels continue to adopt child and teenage perspectives, her literary preoccupations span all ages.

If you are regretting the passage of another summer and feeling nostalgic about the lost freedoms of youth, Sonya Hartnett’s latest novel, Surrender, may serve as a useful tonic. In Hartnett’s world, children possess little and control less, dependent as they are on adults and on their own capacity to manipulate, or charm ...

Camel Rider is, according to the Penguin press release, the story of a young American boy living in the Middle East. When war breaks out, the release goes on, the boy is left behind as his family flees to safety. He befriends a young Arab boy, who has been kidnapped and taken to the desert as a camel jockey. Actually, no. Camel Rider is the story of a young Australian boy, Adam, living in the Middle East. When the city is invaded, his family does not flee. His father, a pilot, is away on a four-day trip (with Adam’s passport tucked unknowingly in his flight bag); his mother is on her way to Melbourne alone simply because, without a passport, Adam is unable to travel with her. In the desert, Adam meets a young Bangladeshi boy, who has not been kidnapped but rather sold to slave traders. Should it matter that a press release has it so wrong? I think it does.