Eva Hornung was born in Bendigo and now lives in rural South Australia. Formerly published as Eva Sallis, Hornung is an award-winning writer of literary fiction and criticism- her first novel Hiam won the Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1997 and the Nita May Dobbie Award in 1999. The Marsh Birds won the Asher Literary Award 2005 and was shortlisted for numerous awards including the Age Book of the Year 2005, NSW Premier's Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Eva Hornung's highly acclaimed Dog Boy was shortlisted for numerous prizes and won the Prime Minister's Literary Award in 2010.
'Dog Boy is a wonderful novel, a tour de force.' -- John Burnside Guardian UK 'Hornung writes with extraordinary force and insight...an amazing feat of imaginative power.' Canberra Times 'Astonishing...A strange, sombre, sobering triumph.' Sydney Morning Herald 'There's human violence and the strength of animals...just gripping.' Australian 'Vivid, visceral and disconcerting. The descriptions of animals are intensely empathetic, and the book raises fundamental and confronting questions about how our animal and our human selves can or should co-exist.' Books + Publishing 'Eight years after the magical, Prime Minister's Literary Award-winning Dog Boy, what a joy it is to have another beautifully-wrought novel by Adelaide author Eva Hornung.' Adelaide Advertiser 'Like all great literary fiction, The Last Garden provokes thought and empathy in equal measure. This visceral and utterly compelling new novel represents an ambitious new layer to Hornung's continued investigation of the human condition, magnificently realised.' Readings 'This is a novel that is calm and patient in its telling, and almost hypnotic in its effect. What Hornung emphasises is that it's neither our hopes for the future, nor the suffering of our pasts, that saves us. Rather, it's in the act of living-the way we attune ourselves to the shifting demands of the world around us; the use we make of the time between the first garden ... and the last -that redemption is to be found.' Australian 'It's melancholy, beautiful, and deeply evocative. Michael Cathcart admitted to the writer that he knew he was going to love it from page one.' Michael Cathcart, Radio National 'Eva Hornung understands how critical human relationships with animals can be.' Guardian 'Yes, there are grotesque and sinister surprises aplenty in this weird prodigy of a book, but there is a lot of tenderness and an extraordinary beauty too.' Saturday Paper 'Melancholy, beautiful, and deeply evocative.' RN Books and Arts 'Full of symbolism but not overpowered by it, this is a powerful book, and the writing is mesmerising.' Herald Sun