Upswell acquires Nowra’s “My Grandfather’s Ghost”

Upswell Publishing has acquired world rights to My Grandfather’s Ghost, a narrative nonfiction title by Louis Nowra, via Natalie Stewart, HLA Management.

Describing My Grandfather’s Ghost, Nowra said, “On 12 December 1945, my mother shot and killed her father, an incident that became a famous murder trial. He had survived Gallipoli and the horrors of the Western Front but died at the hands of his 19-year-old daughter. He became conspicuous by his erasure from our family history. I set out to find out about his life and background, and why my mother shot him. His father had murdered a policeman and was always on the run.”

Nowra said, “My grandfather had returned from the Great War haunted by memories of the men he had killed. No doctors or psychiatrists could help him. Driven by inner demons he was a brutal and unstable man, but it was my mother’s marriage, a year before he died, to an Indonesian army officer that was to set in motion the deadly reckoning in a St Kilda kitchen.

“A few years later I was born on the 12th of December, the anniversary of his death, my birthday a constant reminder to my mother of her act. In finding out the truth I uncovered secrets, lies and myths that I once thought were true. My grandfather’s ghost still haunts our family.”

Nowra is a playwright, novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He is author of the novels The Misery of Beauty (A&R), Palu (Random House), Red Nights (Picador), and Abaza (Picador), and of Ice, Prince of Afghanistan and Into that Forest (all A&U). He has written two memoirs, The Twelfth of Never and Shooting the Moon. With Mandy Sayer, he co-edited the influential anthology about Kings Cross, In the Gutter … Looking at the Stars (Random House). His recent nonfiction includes Kings Cross, Woolloomooloo and Sydney (all NewSouth). Nowra is the recipient of the 2013 Patrick White Award.

Upswell publisher Terri-ann White said, “I stayed up all night reading this extraordinary account of the general aftermath of war and violence and how poorly prepared our society is, still is, to deal with those who willingly or otherwise serve their country. I’m referring to support, compassion, and transitions back into civil society. It feels apt in our current times to remind ourselves how cruelty often remains as a foundation, burnt into careless traditions across centuries.”

Upswell has scheduled My Grandfather’s Ghost for publication in February 2027.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions