How do you feel about the fact that this is inspired by a real person, do you think the linking of a novel with a person who existed in history has worked?

Kate Grenville’s return to the territory of The Secret River is historical fiction turned inside out, a stunning sleight of hand by one of our most original writers.

Remains unsaid

Natives fighting to hold on to what is originally theirs is part of the weave of A Room Made of Leaves, which continues Grenville’s focus on settler life in her historical trilogy, The Secret River (winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and a finalist for the 2006 Booker Prize), The Lieutenant and Sarah Thornhill. But that thread is tenuous in this novel — who is the aggressor, and who, the aggrieved? — and readers may not find themselves rooting for the rightful owners of the land. Forced to reveal to Elizabeth the existence of a large debt, John announces he has accepted a posting to the penal colony in New South Wales as it comes with promotion. As usual, he’s full of confidence, dismisses reports of troubles in the colony and seems to have no concerns about taking wife and young son half way across the world. This book isn’t history. It’s fiction. But, like most historical fiction, it starts in the same place history does: in the record of the past left to us in documents, oral traditions, buildings, landscapes and objects. Historians devise one kind of story from those sources. Fiction writers devise another kind. Those sources are flawed, partial and ambiguous. For that reason, the stories that come out of them, although starting in the same place, can end up very differently. But what historians and writers of historical fiction have in common is an urge to understand that past: what it meant then, and perhaps more importantly, what it means now: for us, living in the world that’s been shaped by that past. Take a Look at Our Summary of November Highlights, Whether You're Looking for the Latest Releases or Gift Inspiration

Australian history, like most histories, is a bit light-on when it comes to women, because they left so little behind. Even when they were educated enough to write letters or journals, those writings are bland, sedate things, suitable to be shared in any genteel parlour. Women at that time had no choice but to be bland. Without any power over any aspect of their lives, they were obliged to go along with a social and legal system that equated them with children. They might have talked together about what they felt about that destiny, but none of them could risk putting it in writing. C: Of course this isn’t the first time that you’ve created a really strong independent, feisty colonial woman. Sal and Sara Thornhill were both those things but this is the first time you’ve created a female character like that who’s also a real historical figure. Do different rules apply?

With no option but to follow her husband to Australia, she makes the most of the rough conditions, does her best for her children and develops friendships among the settlers and transported convicts of the growing town of Sydney, New South Wales. C: Indeed with Mr Dawes Elizabeth discovers a new and more authentic way of being herself, to live in her own skin. The room made of leaves is a place that the lovers share but that special place is also a kind of room made of leaves of one’s own, to mix literary titles, where Elizabeth can express her true self. Is your story essentially the oldest story ever told, a liberation narrative?