Jock Serong on the harrowing story of love and adventure on the high seas in 'The Burning Island'

Jock Serong is the winner of 2021 Historical Novel Society's ARA Prize for Historical Fiction for the second book in a three part trilogy exploring the history around the Furneaux group of islands off the north-eastern coast of Tasmania.Eliza Grayling reluctantly sets off from Sydney Cove on the Danish schooner Moonbird in search of the wreck of the Howrah, lost in the islands of the Bass Strait carrying valuable but uncertain cargo. Her fellow passengers include her blind alcoholic father, a curious cross-dressing captain and the mysterious Dr Gideon, a botanist and apparent man of science.The journey is compromised by several deaths while at sea and when the Moonbird approaches it's destination, the truth they seek is not all it seems.This remarkable work of historical fiction brings together real historical figures and events with vividly imagined characters to recreate a journey into the disturbing heart of a brutal period in Australia's colonial history.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Jock Serong about the role of historical fiction in opening up our hidden history, his fascination with the Furneaux Islands and how real and imagined historical figures can coexist in fiction writing and bring history to life.