The Orange Prize–winning author Kate Grenville recalls her family’s history in an astounding novel about the pioneers of New South Wales. Already a best seller in Australia, The Secret River is the story of Grenville’s ancestors, who wrested a new life from the alien terrain of Australia and its native people. William Thornhill, a Thames bargeman, is deported to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia in 1806. In this new world of convicts and charlatans, Thornhill tries to pull his family into a position of power and comfort. When he rounds a bend in the Hawkesbury River and sees a gentle slope of land, he becomes determined to make the place his own. But, as uninhabited as the island appears, Australia is full of native people, and they do not take kindly to Thornhill’s theft of their home. The Secret River is the tale of Thornhill’s deep love for his small corner of the new world, and his slow realization that if he wants to settle there, he must ally himself with the most despicable of the white settlers, and to keep his family safe, he must permit terrifying cruelty to come to innocent people.

凯特·格伦维尔（1950— ）　国际知名的澳大利亚女作家，获得过悉尼大学和美国科罗拉多大学的学位，曾分别在欧洲和美国工作和学习过七年。做过电影编辑、记者、打字员和教师。已有六部小说问世并获多种文学奖项，其中《完美的想法》获2001年英国橘子奖，《丽莲的故事》（已被拍成电影）、《黑暗之地》、《琼创造了历史》等深受评论家和读者喜爱。《神秘的河流》是她迄今在国际上最有影响的代表作。

格伦维尔擅长在自己创作的历史小说中探讨澳大利亚在殖民时期和当代的阶级、种族和性别问题。