Joan Makes History

Joan Makes History
ISBN: 9780702253515
Publication Date: 22 October 2014

In this rollicking, irreverent tour de force, Kate Grenville rewrites the familiar past.

Joan is a woman of no great distinction, but in the life of her imagination she is in the front line of events, cheerfully altering history. Joan Makes History was first published in 1988 and was funded by the Australian Bicentennial Authority to celebrate 200 years of history. It was also Kate Grenville's debut novel.

'A writer of quite extraordinary talent, slipping between the centuries with a fluid and vigorous prose style.' Literary Review

'Hugely entertaining. It is impossible to resist Grenville's warm and affectionate wit. We follow Joan's rich and complex story with a profound sense of engagement.' Courier-Mail 'Joan Makes History is a lively, witty, very wise look at the role of women in our society. Kate Grenville is a writer who knows about those things which belong to eternity.' Manning Clark

Australia is colonised but from the female point of view. Joan is observant, calm, tender, angry, despairing. Kate Grenville understands the comic poetry of suffering.' Thea Astley

'A virtuoso performance by a writer from the Antipodes who belongs at the center of the fiction map.' Kirkus Reviews

'A funny, moving, brilliantly contrived story about the Everywoman unsung by straight historians.' Age

About the Author

Kate Grenville is the author of The Secret River.