Yilkari

A desert suite

Nicolas Rothwell, Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson

$34.99

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English

Text Publishing Company
29 July 2025

The new genre-defying book from the two-time Prime Minister's Award winning author of Red Heaven and Belomor.

A Siberian composer named Valentin comes to a remote roadhouse in the Western Desert to find the narrator of Yilkari, whom he first met the night the Berlin Wall fell. They travel on together, leading us deeper into the desert in this mesmerising, unclassifiable book, co-written by the prize-winning author Nicolas Rothwell and his wife, the acclaimed artist Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson.

Later, he takes us driving on hidden tracks in search of other characters and other stories that transport the mind. He visits the magic mountain, even though it is not on any maps, whose peak seems to draw the light into itself, the heart of life.

Yilkari reveals its secrets, such secrets as it can reveal, through the conversations of its characters and their journeys into landscapes in which space and time are aspects of each other. Their exchanges touch on ways of knowing and speaking and imagining that are only within reach in the desert.

The authors are both characters and guides. This is a book of strange coincidences, of intricate, interlinked dreamings, of chance encounters in living landscapes where the thread of sound is almost too faint to hear when the evening sun is low, the best time for telling stories.

PRAISE-

'A caster of spells.' Australian Book Review

'Remarkable.' Age

'Outstanding...

Romantic, dramatic, intelligent, cultured, enigmatic, cinematic...

Made me feel alive as I read.' Australian on Red Heaven

'Red Heaven is a dazzling novel for the ages...a novel that transcends time and place.' 2022 Prime Minister's Literary Awards

By: Nicolas Rothwell, Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson
Imprint: Text Publishing Company
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 356g
ISBN: 9781923058422
ISBN 10: 1923058428
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 29 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Nicolas Rothwell lives in Far North Queensland and is a former foreign correspondent. His award-winning books include The Red Highway, Belomor and, most recently, Quicksilver. Find out more about Nicolas Rothwell @ nicolasrothwell.com

Reviews for Yilkari: A desert suite

‘A caster of spells.’ * Australian Book Review * ‘Remarkable.’ * Age * ‘Red Heaven is a dazzling novel for the ages…a novel that transcends time and place.’ * 2022 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards * ‘Outstanding…Romantic, dramatic, intelligent, cultured, enigmatic, cinematic…Made me feel alive as I read.’ * Australian on Red Heaven *