Dusk by Robbie Arnott
2025 Shortlist - Adult Category
About Robbie Arnott
Robbie Arnott is the author of Limberlost, The Rain Heron and Flames. He's a two-time winner of The Age Book of the Year, and has also been awarded the Voss Literary Prize. He's been named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist, and has twice been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, as well as the Dylan Thomas Prize. He lives in Hobart with his wife and daughter.
About Dusk
In the distant highlands, a puma named Dusk is killing shepherds. Down in the lowlands, twins Iris and Floyd are out of work, money and friends. When they hear that a bounty has been placed on Dusk, they reluctantly decide to join the hunt. As they journey up into this wild, haunted country, they discover there's far more to the land and people of the highlands than they imagined. And as they close in on their prey, they're forced to reckon with conflicts both ancient and deeply personal.
Robbie Arnott says: “Engaging with both history and imagination is, to my mind, one of the most important things we can do to create a better future. I’m thrilled that the ARA Historical Novel Prize fosters these traits, and I’m even more thrilled that Dusk was deemed worthy of a place on this list.”
From the judging panel: Dusk reminds that quality fiction can bring the past to life in many ways, including through a further imagining of the real. Robbie Arnott tells of troubled twin siblings who set out on a bounty-hunt – a past and still present practice that has contributed to species destruction around the world, but here in a setting suggestive of the Tasmanian highlands in the 19th century and with a big cat as its target. In Dusk the author gives readers a deeply imagined, superbly written novel that is neither fictional realism of the everyday kind, nor conventional fantasy. This is tense, gripping, and atmospheric storytelling that takes its cues from historical fact, reminding not only of what has been, but also the challenges human behaviour represents to the survival of species on our planet.
