English Passengers

In 1857 when Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of rum smugglers from the Isle of Man have most of their contraband confiscated by British Customs, they are forced to put their ship up for charter. The only takers are two eccentric Englishmen who want to embark for the other side of the globe. The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson believes the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania. His travelling partner, Dr. Thomas Potter, unbeknownst to Wilson, is developing a sinister thesis about the races of men. Meanwhile, an aboriginal in Tasmania named Peevay recounts his people's struggles against the invading British.

Winner of Whitbread Book Awards: Book of the Year 2000 Winner of Whitbread Prize (Novel) 2000 Winner of Whitbread Book Awards: Novel Category 2000 Short-listed for Booker Prize for Fiction 2000

"'A big, ambitious novel with a rich historical sweep and a host of narrative voices. Its subject is a vicar's ludicrous expedition in 1857 to the Garden of Eden in Tasmania, [as] meanwhile, in Tasmania itself, the British settlers are alternately trying to civilise and eliminate the Aboriginal population... The sort of novel that few contemporary writers have either the imagination or the stamina to sustain' - Daily Telegraph"

Matthew Kneale was born in 1960. He is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, including SWEET THAMES (1992), which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. He lives in Oxford.

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