CATHERINE McKINNON

‘In an exquisite, braided narrative, Catherine McKinnon’s To Sing of War reanimates World War 11 in a paean to the environment. Set between December 1944 and August 1945, the narrators experience the ways “Violence is malleable, it is everywhere”, but find healing and resilience in “the heart of the earth”’. Read here for more

Catherine McKinnon’s last novel, the Miles Franklin-shortlisted Storyland, is one of the more striking Australian novels of recent years. Spanning almost a thousand years, from the 1700s to the 28th century, it powerfully captures the links between colonial destruction and ecological crisis and speaks to the violence inherent in trying to understand the human in separation…

From Miles Franklin–shortlisted author Catherine McKinnon (Storyland), To Sing of War confronts the interconnectedness that binds humanity. Against the backdrop of WWII, we find ourselves immersed in the jungles of New Guinea, where a young Australian nurse, Lotte Wyld, encounters her first love, Virgil. Read here for more

Catherine McKinnon graduated from Flinders University Drama Centre, South Australia, and was a founding member of the Red Shed Theatre Company, where she worked as writer and director. After a period in South Australian theatre, she moved to Sydney to complete a Masters in Creative Writing at UTS, where she began her first novel, The Nearly Happy…

Catherine McKinnon’s last novel, Storyland, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, and it’s worth betting that To Sing of War will attract just as much, if not more, critical acclaim. McKinnon skilfully interweaves three separate narratives in a multilayered amalgamation of history and fiction.  Lotte Wyld is a young Australian nurse serving in New Guinea in 1944…

Seven years after the Miles Franklin Award shortlisted Storyland, author Catherine McKinnon has published a remarkable new novel, To Sing of War. I really liked and admired Storyland (see here) so I didn’t hesitate. As you will know if you’ve been following my adventures with Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend by Donna Coates, you will know that…