Eucalyptus - Tapa dura

Winner of the 1999 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book

A New York Times Notable Book of 1998

"T here is such delight in           Eucalyptus, such a strange and sly and swerving humour--You will never forget what is at the heart of this novel -- one of the great and most surprising courtships in literature."  - Michael Ondaatje

Amidst the spearing light and broken shadows of Australia's Outback, a man named Holland raises his daughter, Ellen. As she grows into a woman of unusual beauty, he tends an orchard that boasts every species of eucalyptus. When Ellen is nineteen, her father makes an announcement: she will marry the man who can successfully name each tree. What emerges is a story scintillating with sudden wisdom and spiky truths, a modern-day fairy tale that affirms the seductive power of storytelling itself.

Murray Bail  is the author of two other novels, Holden's Performance and Homesickness, which won Australia's National Book Award, and a collection of stories. He lives in Sydney, Australia.