Adrian Caesar

The White won the Nettie Palmer prize for non-fiction in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, 2000, and the ACT Book of the Year, 2000.

The Blessing  was long-listed for the Voss Literary Award, 2016.

A Winter Sowing

'It's not like that, Josie. I can't tell you anything. I've got nothing to say.'

'Well, neither have I then,' she shouts at him as she heads for the door.

'Don't go. Don't leave like this.'

But it's too late. She's through the door and slams it behind her... 

David Young is a divorced Vietnam veteran, an artist and a gardener. He is trying to come to terms with the trauma of war through his painting. With every brush - stroke he seeks to transform the moments of brutality, the memories of violence that plague his nights and haunt his days. At the same time he is trying to manage a fractious relationship with his feisty sixteen-year-old daughter, Josie. When a single mum and her son move in next door, further complications enter David's life. As he tries to find a way forward, Josie enters a downward spiral. David believes his trauma is becoming hers. When his daughter's life threatens to spiral out of control, he must do everything he can to save her . . .

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A Winter Sowing is a moving exploration of a father's quest for redemption through art and love.

The White

It is 1912, the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. Scott's journey has ended. Mawson's is just beginning. Adrian Caesar's stunning stroke of imaginative re - creation transports us to the last days of those perilous expeditions in the heart of the white continent. 

Sweeping  through deaths and disasters with the pace and inevitability of a thriller, The White inexorably lays bare the forces that drove these two adventures, the values that inspired them, and the remorseless obsession that dominated them.

Praise for The White: 

‘Adrian Caesar’s chilling prose transported me right back into the heart of Antarctica. This is a magnificent retelling of those two fateful expeditions of 1912.’

–  Ranulph Fiennes on The White

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‘This imagined re-creation of the two most unforgettable Antarctic disasters tells brutal stories but manages to do so with great tenderness and grace. Adrian Caesar’s literary high-wire act works wonderfully well, adding a vivid humantiy to landscapes scattered only with stiffly written memoirs and black, ice-cold memorials.’

– Simon Winchester on The White

The White is an exceptionally rich and moving experience . . .’

– Michael McGirr, Australian Book Review

‘Caesar has done something remarkable . . .It is compulsive reading’

– Christopher Bantick on The White in The Canberra Times

‘Hundreds of books have been written about Scott and Mawson, but The White must stand proudly with the best.’

-- Wayne Gregson in the Bendigo Advertiser

The Blessing

Whose side are you on? Where does your loyalty lie? Belfast, 1912. Jack Young joins the mass rally to sign the Covenant pledging Ulster Protestants to oppose Home Rule by any means possible. But he has a guilty secret. He is in love with a Catholic girl, Kathleen McCafferty, who is carrying his child. Public and private loyalties collide, dividing Jack and Kathleen, but their feelings for each other remain strong. After years of separation in which both become entangled in the political struggle and Jack survives the First World War, they find each other again. But troubles are brewing in Belfast and their love is once again threatened by sectarian violence... 

In a love affair divided by battlegrounds at home and abroad, can a priest's words make a difference or will guns do the talking?

Praise For The Blessing:

‘

All the characters – and this is a major achievement – are brilliantly observed and remain clear and strong and individual in the mind; the voice is utterly authentic throughout; the pacing and tension are extraordinary; there was never a moment when I felt the quality or pace was misplaced or slackened off…The Blessing is the most satisfying and enthralling novel I’ve read in a long time’

– Alex Miller

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‘The prose has simplicity, at times a limpidity, which give it a transparency through which its complex meanings can shine out. There’s no sense of striving for effect, it is simply a pleasure to read. The Blessing is a book that has us compulsively turning its pages at the same time as it makes us want not to finish it too soon’

– Marion Halligan AM

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‘. . . there is more in these 300 pages than you will find in many books of twice the length. The author has managed an entirely believable story in prose that is polished and engrossing.’

-- Frank O’Shea in the Irish Echo

‘. . . his story telling gifts often shine . . .’
-- Owen Richardson in Sydney Morning Herald