About the book

Paperback reprint in the 'Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics' series of a collection of six stories and short novels, first published in 1974. In addition to the title story, the stories are 'A Woman's Hand', 'The Full Belly', 'The Night the Prowler', 'Five-Twenty' and 'Sicilian Vespers'. The Australian author's novels include 'The Tree of Man' and 'The Vivisector' and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973.