Turtle Beach
By (Author) Blanche d'Alpuget
Allen & Unwin
A & U House of Books
1st June 2012
Australia
Paperback
296
Width 128mm, Height 197mm
278g
Judith Wilkes, an ambitious journalist, leaves her husband and two sons in Australia and goes to Malaysia to report on the international refugee crisis. Ten years earlier, Malaysia provided Judith with her first major career success, but also with a personal disaster that she would like to forget.
While on assignment Judith encounters Minou, the manipulative young French-Vietnamese wife of a high-ranking Australian diplomat. Minou is desperate to rescue her children from Saigon, who were left behind when she fled. Judith also begins a romance with the enigmatic Indian scholar Kanan. These new loyalties throw her headlong into dramatic personal and professional dilemmas.
It is on the East Malaysian coast, where the giant turtles gather to lay their eggs, that the conflict reaches its tragic, brutal climax.
Winner of the Age Book of the Year Award, the South Australian Government's Award for Literature, the PEN Golden Jubilee Award and the Braille Book of the Year Award.
Blanche d'Alpuget is the author of seven books, including four novels - Monkeys in the Dark (1980), Turtle Beach (1981), Winter in Jerusalem (1986) and White Eye (1993). These works earned her a number of literary prizes including the PEN Golden Jubilee Award, The Age Book of the Year Award and the South Australian Government's Award for Literature.
d'Alpuget's first book, Mediator: A Biography of Sir Richard Kirby was published in 1977 to critical acclaim. Robert J. Hawke: A Biography (1982) was both a national bestseller and the winner of several awards. She is also the author of On Longing and Hawke: The Prime Minister.
She has served on the boards of the Copyright Agency Ltd and the Australian Film Commission, and was the Chair of the Australian Society of Authors in 1991. She lives in Sydney with her husband and son.