Sydney: A biography 2024 Edition

‘Nowra captures the everchanging spirit of what is arguably – to most, inarguably to Nowra – Australia’s pre-eminent city.’ – Books+Publishing

In Sydney, acclaimed playwright and writer Louis Nowra – author of Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo – expands his gaze to explore the energy, beauty, vulgarity, dynamism and pulsating sense of self-importance of his adopted city.

This big, bustling portrait of Sydney is told through a cast of criminals and premiers, ordinary folk, entertainers, artists, thieves and visionaries.

Along with its people Nowra surveys the city’s landscape, its architecture, and its global identity. And as Sydney’s history unfolds throughout the twentieth century and beyond, Nowra revels in its neon lights, music, skyscrapers, sense of optimism and the many disparate elements that shape Sydneysiders’ view of themselves.

About the Author

Louis Nowra is a playwright, novelist, essayist and screen-writer. Some of his plays are Inner Voices, The Golden Age, Inside the Island, The Boyce Trilogy, Radiance and The Lewis Trilogy (Summer of the Aliens, Così, This Much is True). Screen credits include Map of the Human Heart, Radiance, Black and White, Heaven’s Burning, K-19: The Widowmaker and Così. His novels are The Misery of Beauty, Palu, Red Nights, Abaza and Ice. He has written two memoirs, The Twelfth of Never and Shooting the Moon. With Mandy Sayer, he co-edited the influential anthology about Kings Cross, In the Gutter… Looking at the Stars. His recent non-fiction includes Kings Cross: a biography (2013), Woolloomooloo: a biography (2017). He lives on the border between Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo and is married to the writer Mandy Sayer.

Louis Nowra
Published December 2024
Paperback
544 pages 
210mm x 135mm
ISBN 9781761170324