Francesca de Tores is a novelist and poet. She is the author of six novels, published in more than 20 languages. Her first historical novel, Saltblood, was awarded the 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. In addition to a collection of poems, her poetry is widely published in journals and anthologies. She grew up in Lutruwita/Tasmania and, after fifteen years in England, is now living in Naarm/Melbourne.
What makes Cast Away exceptional is the way de Tores threads Selkirk’s metaphysical struggles through the story, and writes about them with poetry, whimsy and humour. De Tores asks: what is the nature of a human, when everything extraneous has gone? I read Cast Away over one weekend and could not put it down. I adored it -- TONI JORDAN, author of Tenderfoot