FED: Aust author wins Commonwealth Writers Prize

AAP General News (Australia)
04-30-1999
FED: Aust author wins Commonwealth Writers Prize

By Krystyna Rudzki

SYDNEY, April 30 AAP - Australian author Murray Bail has won this year's Commonwealth
Writers Prize, keeping intact a perfect record of award-winning novels.

Mr Bail, 58, who hails from Adelaide but now lives in Sydney, beat writers from South
Africa, Britain and Trinidad to win the Stg10,000 ($A24,530) prize for his novel Eucalyptus.

A Commonwealth Writers Prize judge described Eucalyptus as "a work of deeply imaginative
originality ... a highly entertaining and sophisticated piece of contemporary fiction".

Eucalyptus is Mr Bail's third novel and tells the story of Holland, who lives with his
daughter Ellen on his New South Wales property.

As Ellen grows into a beautiful young woman, Holland plants different types of gum trees on
his land.

When Ellen is 19, Holland announces she will only marry the man who can name every species
of Eucalypt, down to the last tree.

"It's an inspired and logical one about how all fathers don't like their daughters getting
married," Mr Bail said from Wellington, New Zealand, where he will be presented with his prize
at a dinner tonight.

"Every father deep down does not want another man with his daughter, even if they try to
hide it. And I could see a way to develop that.

"I don't have any children, it's all imagined, instinct. Maybe it would have been better if
I did have a daughter in writing such a book, but it works okay."

Mr Bail's first novel Homesickness won the National Book Council Award for Australian
Literature and his subsequent novel Holden's Performance took the Valmer Prize for fiction.

"It's quite handy," he said of his prize-winning streak.

"But it might be a bit of a rarity, it's all a lottery these prizes. A different group of
judges might have chosen differently."

"(But) it's good when a novel connects with its own country and in other places as well."

Eucalyptus was a long time coming - it's been nearly 12 years since Mr Bail last had a book
published.

"It's been a long time between drinks," he said. "I'm slightly slow, you need patience."

"I've spent a long time waiting, almost every day, waiting to get the right angle and tone
of voice. I wasn't in any hurry.

"I didn't want to just quickly write any book. I wanted something a bit more fresh and
deep."

He said his next novel would not take as long to write.

"I hope not," he said. "This book isn't all that long (250 pages). It's a short novel,
about the right length in my mind. I'll warm up a bit, that might take me another year or
two."

As part of the prize, Mr Bail will be presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace on May
19, an event which bemuses the republican.

"That will be interesting won't it?" he said. "I don't know how it's done. I might be in a
long line of lawn bowlers or something."

Also tonight, Canadian writer Kerri Sakamoto will be presented with a Stg3,000
($A7,360) cheque for winning the Best First Book prize for her novel The Electrical Field.

Mr Bail beat South African Marion Molteno (If You Can Walk, You Can Dance), Trinidad's
Lawrence Scott (Aelred's Sin) and Britain's Beryl Bainbridge (Master Georgie).

AAP knr/tsm/ms

KEYWORD: BAIL

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