Mention Colin Thiele’s name, and at least one listener will sigh and say The Sun on the Stubble in a wistful or regretful voice, depending on their schooldays memories. This biography takes us on ngrugie ngoppun: a ‘good walk’ with its subject. Largely chronological, it begins with a glimpse of the writer poised to tell his enduring story of the Coorong, Storm Boy (1963), and then retraces his long life and career (Thiele was born in 1920). His idyllic boyhood in the bosom of a loving farm community, his academic studies as a young adult, his RAAF service and his long distinguished teaching career are all laid out, leading to his subsequent fame as a part-time writer.
Can I Call You Colin?: The Authorised Biography of Colin Thiele by Stephany Evans Steggall
New Holland, $29.95 pb, 448 pp
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