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Traitor

Traitor

Stephen Daisley

  • awardWinner, Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, 2011
  • What would make a soldier betray his country?

    In the battle-smoke and chaos of Gallipoli, a young New Zealand soldier helps a Turkish doctor fighting to save a boy’s life. Then a shell bursts nearby; the blast that should have killed them both consigns them instead to the same military hospital.

    Mahmoud is a Sufi. A whirling dervish, he says, of the Mevlevi order. He tells David stories. Of arriving in London with a pocketful of dried apricots. Of Majnun, the man mad for love, and of the saint who flew to paradise on a lion skin. You are God, we are all gods, Mahmoud tells David; and a bond grows between them.

    A bond so strong that David will betray his country for his friend.

    Stephen Daisley’s astonishing debut novel is a story of war and of love—how each changes everything, forever. Traitor is that rarest of things: a work of fiction that will transport the reader, heart and soul, into another realm.

    Listen to Stephen discuss Traitor on ABC Radio National’s special Anzac Day Breakfast show.

    Stephen Daisley receives the Prime Minister’s Award

    Stephen receives the Prime Minister’s Award, Age 8/7/11 (AAP: Alan Porritt)

    Stephen Daisley
    About the Author

    Stephen Daisley was born in 1955 and grew up in the North Island of New Zealand. He has worked on sheep and cattle stations, on oil and gas construction sites and as a truck driver, among many other jobs.

    His first novel, Traitor, won the 2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction. Coming Rain won the Ockham Prize in 2015. Stephen lives in...

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    Extent:
    304pp
    Format:
    Paperback
    Text publication date:
    2 May 2011
    ISBN:
    9781921758379
    AU Price:
    $23.95
    NZ Price:
    $30.00
    Australian
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    Other editions ofTraitor
    • Traitor
      ebook
      ISBN: 9781921799266
      25 September 2009
      Buy ebook