Kathryn Heyman
Kathryn Heyman (born
1965) is an
Australian
writer, born in
Lismore,
New South Wales.
Heyman is the author of four novels:
The Breaking (1997),
Keep Your Hands on the Wheel (1999),
The Accomplice (2003) and most recently
Captain Starlight's Apprentice (2006). She is also a playwright for theatre and radio and has held a number of creative writing fellowships in the UK and Australia. Her short stories have appeared in a number of collections and also on radio.
Heyman's first novel,
The Breaking, was longlisted for the
Orange Prize, and shortlisted for the
Scottish Writer of the Year Award. Her third,
The Accomplice, won an
Arts Council England Writer's Award and was shortlisted for the
West Australian Premier's Prize.
The Accomplice is a fictional account of the wreck of the Dutch flagship the
Batavia off the Australian coast in the
17th century. As a meditation on complicity with
evil it has been compared with the work of
Joseph Conrad and
William Golding.
Her most recent novel,
Captain Starlight's Apprentice, features a woman
bushranger, the birth (and near death) of the
Australian film industry, and a British migrant to Australia who undergoes
electroconvulsive therapy.
Heyman's writing has been compared with that of
Angela Carter,
Peter Carey and
Kate Grenville.
Heyman's work regularly appears on
BBC Radio 4, and a five-part dramatic adaptation of
Captain Starlight's Apprentice is sheduled to appear on
Woman's Hour in late 2006.
The Breaking. Phoenix House (1997)
Keep Your Hands on the Wheel. Phoenix House (1999)
The Accomplice. Hodder Headline (2003)
Captain Starlight's Apprentice. Hodder Headline (2006). ISBN 0755302176 (hardback), ISBN 075533115X (trade paperback)
*The Princess Who Couldn't Fly (and a Word or Two About the Crippled King) (1990)
*Unreal (1991)
*Sex, Lies and Model Aeroplanes (1991) with David Lennie and Paul Tolton
*Exodus (1993) with
David Purveur*Dancing on the Word (1993)
*That's The Way to Do It (1994) with
Josephine Enright*Far Country (2002) starring
Kerry Fox*Keep Your Hands on the Wheel (2003) starring
Kerry Fox*Moonlight's Boy (2005)
*
Official web site*
Author profile in The Australian newspaper (2006)
