Harland's Half Acre - Paperback

by David Malouf (Author)

Born on a poor dairy farm in Queensland, Frank Harland's life is centered on his great artistic gift, his passionate love for his father and four brothers and his need to repossess, through a patch of land, his family's past. The story spans Frank's life; from before the First World War, through years as a swaggie in the Great Depression and Brisbane in the forties, to his retirement to a patch of Australian scrub where he at last takes possession of his dream.

Harland's Half Acre tells how a man sets out to recover the land his ancestors discovered and then lost and how, in fulfilment, this vision becomes a new reality.

Back Jacket

This is a haunting portrait of an Australian artist, a man who is at once a genuine visionary and a flawed savior to his disintegrating family.

Author Biography

David Malouf is the author of eleven novels, as well as bountiful collections of stories, poetry, and opera libretti. He has won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Prix Femina Étranger, and the Australia-Asia Literary Award; he has also been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. David Malouf died in 2026.