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5 May 1999

May 1999

 

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Eucalyptus

by Murray Bail

This is an Australian fairytale and an unusual love story.

There was once a man who had a beautiful daughter called Ellen and a large property in New South Wales on which he grew one of each species of Eucalypt, of which there are hundreds. He decided that the only man who could marry his daughter has to pass a test -he must name all the trees in the plantation.

Ellen tries to ignore the suitors, but amongst her father's trees she meets a young man who is more interested in telling her stories. These are stories from all over the world, but mainly (she realises) about fathers and daughters.

Murray Bail comes from Adelaide but now lives in Sydney. His first novel Homesickness won both the National Book Council Award for Australian Literature and the Age Book of the Year. His second novel Holden's Performance won the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction. he has also published a book of short stories The Drover's Wife.

Reader Robert Menzies
Adapted and produced by Janet Whitaker

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