A Room Made of Leaves is a 2020 novel by the Australian author Kate Grenville, originally published by Text Publishing.
It was the winner of the 2021 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction.
Synopsis This novel tells the story of Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of John Macarthur, a wealthy and corrupt early pioneer of Australia's wool industry. Grenville uses the trope of imagining she has found a long lost memoir of Elizabeth's, upon which she bases her book.
Critical reception Writing in The Guardian Kirsten Tranter called the novel a "stunning literary achievement", and went on to note: "Most striking is the way Grenville makes images startlingly fresh that ought to be worn out with use. She turns inside-out the conventional emblem of birdsong as heartfelt expression, making it expressive only of tragic limitation: as a newly married, unhappy wife, Elizabeth hears a bird that sings 'a lovely song' at dawn."
In Australian Book Review Don Anderson notes that Grenville hints at a possible adulterous relationship between Elizabeth Macarthur and botanist William Dawes, and wonders if it is "ethical for a novelist to do what Grenville does and impute such details into the private lives of historical personages?"
Publication history
2020 Text Publishing, Australia and 2023 2020 Canongate, UK and 2021
The novel was also translated into Italian and German in 2021.
Awards
2021 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards – Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, winner 2021 The Age Book of the Year – Fiction, shortlisted 2021 Walter Scott Prize, shortlisted
Notes
Dedication: Dedicated to all those whose stories have been silenced. Epigraph: Do not believe too quickly! - Elizabeth Macarthur
See also 2020 in Australian literature
References