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An extraordinary new literary novel from the award-winning author of Dog Boy and The Last Garden.
Gem and Will grow up on a farm above the chasm and pool known as the Minstrels, a site where both are broken, each by the other. One will disappear. One will, eventually, be transformed.
Through her encounters with people and through art, land and language, Gem is remade while the world outside changes and time runs out.
This long-awaited new novel from one of our finest writers is a sweeping epic set in literal and figurative blight in a fictional Australian geography; a work of self, time and the very end of something. Wild, mythic and potent, The Minstrels is an apocalyptic redemption fable that weaves the history and probable fate of the world into the life of one woman.
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Format
Paperback
Publisher
Text Publishing
Country
Australia
Date
3 March 2026
Pages
368
ISBN
9781923058781
An extraordinary new literary novel from the award-winning author of Dog Boy and The Last Garden.
Gem and Will grow up on a farm above the chasm and pool known as the Minstrels, a site where both are broken, each by the other. One will disappear. One will, eventually, be transformed.
Through her encounters with people and through art, land and language, Gem is remade while the world outside changes and time runs out.
This long-awaited new novel from one of our finest writers is a sweeping epic set in literal and figurative blight in a fictional Australian geography; a work of self, time and the very end of something. Wild, mythic and potent, The Minstrels is an apocalyptic redemption fable that weaves the history and probable fate of the world into the life of one woman.
The Minstrels is the story of Gem and, to a lesser extent, her brother Will, who live on a farm that backs onto an area called The Minstrels. It’s an area of stunning natural beauty that has a long and chequered past for the township and the people who have lived there across generations. As children, Gem and Will’s love is all encompassing and slowly changes as family history and events play out. Ultimately, due to a combination of circumstances, Gem comes back to run the family farm and challenge the local community and government. Society is slowly disintegrating and she must make some fundamental decisions with a cast of lovable characters who come to depend on her.
Eva Hornung is best known for Dog Boy, for which she won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2010. The Minstrels is powerful and rich in scope and content – a unique story but in the style of Juice by Tim Winton or The Thinning by Inga Simpson, in that they share an apocalyptic environmental message. This was a surprise and real joy to read because at their heart these books, for me, have such a dark, foreboding feeling, but this novel had such a tender beauty in so many moments, that even with the devastation that overshadows the story, the overriding feeling was joy, particularly at the relationships Gem fosters and cultivates on the farm in the second half of the novel, and throughout at all the smaller details.
At its core, The Minstrels is a story of connection and the love of friends, family and the land. It is not without its tragedies, but ultimately it gives a beautiful insight into found families and kindness, especially the love Gem showed others and reaped in return.
Dys-hope-ias: hope for a post-dystopian utopia
While the news may sometimes feel like the early chapters of a dystopian novel, that doesn't mean all hope is lost! Here is a collection of what we're calling 'dys-hope-ias' – dystopian stories that provide hope that a better world can be rebuilt, even after everything has seemingly fallen apart.
