Unfinished Woman

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ABIA 2024
SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA

An unforgettable memoir from the author of the sensational international bestseller Tracks: the story of a mother and daughter, of love, loss and the pursuit of freedom

In 1977, twenty-seven-year-old Robyn Davidson set off with a dog and four camels to cross 1,700 miles of Australian desert to the sea.

A life of almost constant travelling followed. From the deserts of Australia, to Sydney's underworld; from Sixties street life, to the London literary scene; from migrating with nomads in Tibet, to 'marrying' an Indian prince, Davidson's quest was motivated by an unquenchable curiosity about other ways of seeing and understanding the world.

Davidson threw bombs over her shoulder and seeds into her future on the assumption that something would be growing when she got there. The only terrain she had no interest in exploring was the past.

In Unfinished Woman Davidson turns at last to explore that long avoided country. Through this brave and revealing memoir, she delves into her childhood and youth to uncover the forces that set her on her path, and confront the cataclysm of her early loss.

Unfinished Woman is an unforgettable investigation of time and memory, and a powerful interrogation of how we can live with and find beauty in the uncertainty and strangeness of being.

About the Author

Robyn Davidson was born on a cattle property in Queensland. She moved to Sydney in the late Sixties, then returned to study in Brisbane before going to Alice Springs to prepare for her journey across the Australian desert. Davidson's first book Tracks, her account of this crossing, was an international sensation, and was adapted for a film starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver. She has travelled extensively, and has lived in London, New York and India. In the early 1990s Davidson migrated with and wrote about nomads in north-west India. She is now based in regional Victoria, but spends some time each year in India.