Allen & Unwin to republish Alex Miller

Allen & Unwin is hoping to introduce readers to the talents of Australian novelist Alex Miller, with an ambitious re-publishing programme that will see eight of his books released this year.

Beginning in April with the paperback release of last year’s hardback Autumn Laing, A&U will re-publish seven of the author’s backlist novels, ahead of a new novel due in summer 2014.

Although born in the UK, Miller’s work has never achieved the recognition in the UK that it has Down Under. He has won numerous awards, twice winning the Miles Franklin Award, as well as claiming the Melbourne Prize for Literature in 2012. He has also won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1993, and in 2008 was awarded the Manning Clark Medal for his “outstanding contribution to Australian cultural life”.

Miller’s editor and UK director of A&U, Clare Drysdale, said: “Alex Miller is indisputably one of Australia’s greatest novelists, with the Melbourne Prize for a body of work the latest in a long list of accolades. English by birth, he moved to Australia at the age of 16 to work as a stockman in the outback. This period of his life continues to inform his work, in particular his writing about the Australian landscape.”

Autumn Laing is the eponymous story of a woman with a passion for life and art, looking for redemption following an affair more than 50 years earlier. It was nominated for multiple awards.

Drysdale said: “It seems criminal that British readers have been denied the chance to read the work of one of their own, and A&U is delighted to rectify that with the release of all of Alex’s backlist titles throughout 2013, laying the groundwork for the publication of Alex’s new novel, Coal Creek, in summer 2014.”

Released alongside Autumn Laing in April is The Tivington Nott. These will be followed by Prochownik’s Dream and The Sitters in June, Landscape of Farewell and Journey to the Stone Country in August, and The Ancestor Game and Watching the Climbers on the Mountain in October.

Many of Miller’s books, such as The Tivington Nott, are concerned with nature, with the story set in Exmoor, following a young man’s participation in a hunt for an elusive and legendary stag. Other titles are more concerned with art. Prochownik’s Dream and The Sitters are both focused on artists finding new wells of creativity when they meet new women, but discovering that inspiration comes at a cost.

All the novels will be released in paperback, at a price of £7.99.