Yilkari

A Siberian composer named Valentin comes to a remote roadhouse in the Western Desert to find the narrator of Yilkari, whom he first met the night the Berlin Wall fell. They travel on together, leading us deeper into the desert in this mesmerising, unclassifiable book, co-written by the prize-winning author Nicolas Rothwell and his wife, the acclaimed artist Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson.

Later, he takes us driving on hidden tracks in search of other characters and other stories that transport the mind. He visits the magic mountain, even though it is not on any maps, whose peak seems to draw the light into itself, the heart of life.

Yilkari reveals its secrets, such secrets as it can reveal, through the conversations of its characters and their journeys into landscapes in which space and time are aspects of each other. Their exchanges touch on ways of knowing and speaking and imagining that are only within reach in the desert.

The authors are both characters and guides. This is a book of strange coincidences, of intricate, interlinked dreamings, of chance encounters in living landscapes where the thread of sound is almost too faint to hear when the evening sun is low, the best time for telling stories.

PRAISE:
‘Remarkable.’ Age

‘This is a book that invites reflection and makes you wonder…A compelling read for anyone interested in literature that explores identity and spirituality.’ Books+Publishing
‘A haunting dream about our nature.’ John Woinarski, Best Books of 2025, Conversation

‘Reading it once is just the beginning.’ Stephen Romei, Saturday Paper

‘…beautiful, mesmerising, and form-defying novel…I found myself blissfully lost in the meandering journeys of Yilkari’s characters and their deeply contemplative conversations.’ Paul Daley, Australian Book Review