Swallow the Air

Tara June Winch

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When May's mother dies suddenly, she and her brother Billy are taken in by Aunty. However, their loss leaves them both searching for their place in a world that doesn't seem to want them. While Billy takes his own destructive path, May sets out to find her father and her Aboriginal identity. Her journey leads her from the Australian east coast to the far north, but it is the people she meets, not the destinations, that teach her what it is to belong. Swallow the Air is an unforgettable story of living in a torn world and finding the thread to help sew it back together.

Book Details

Publisher: University of Queensland Pr (Australia)
Publish Date: Sep 3rd, 2025
Pages: 192
Language: English
Edition: undefined - 0004
Dimensions: 7.72in - 5.12in - 0.63in - 0.22lb
EAN: 9780702269165
Categories: • Indigenous - Family Life• Coming of Age

About the Author

Winch, Tara June: - Tara June Winch is a Wiradjuri author, born in Australia in 1983 and based in France. Her first novel, Swallow the Air, was critically acclaimed and she was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist, and has won numerous literary awards. A tenth anniversary edition was published in 2016. In 2008, Tara was mentored by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka as part of the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Her second book, the story collection After the Carnage, was published in 2016. It was longlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, and shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the Queensland Literary Award for a story collection. Her most recent novel, The Yield, won the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

Praise for this book

'Tara June Winch's heartfelt Swallow the Air is the work of a writer blessed with great natural talent and a good ear for dialect.' Sydney Morning Herald

'Tara June Winch's writing is startling: visceral, fresh and poetic.' Vogue Australia

'Sometimes in life you are lucky enough to stumble upon a book that irrevocably changes you and profoundly changes how you experience the world. Tara June Winch's Swallow the Air is one of those rare books.' The Courier-Mail

'Extraordinary, too, is her economy of language and her ability to take the reader to the heart of a matter swiftly on the wing of simple words - I was weeping by page nine.' The Sunday Telegraph

'I love the restraint with language and her control, and the way she makes small observations count. It's spare, thoughtful writing, clever but never about showing off.' The Weekend Australian

'Her writing is raw and sparky, her prose so charged with energy that it bursts, Melville-like, into occasional poetic firestorms.' The Age

'Winch's prose is gloriously idiosyncratic ... it works triumphantly.' The Advertiser