Somewhere Down Under Trivia Quiz

Colin Thiele's "Storm Boy" (1964) is a classic Australian children's story.

The title character, "Storm Boy", is a young lad with the happy habit of wandering through the sand dunes abutting the Indian Ocean. Wandering alone, one day, he rescues three baby pelican chicks, whose mother has been killed. He nurses them, names them and, when they are able, he releases them back into the wild. One of them, Mr. Percival, returns and the two form a strong bond. Intertwined with this tale is the boy's unspoken love for his reclusive father, Hideaway Tom, and the paternal bond that develops between the boy and a local Aboriginal man named Fingerbone Bill. Spoiler alert: the ending is a real tear jerker.

(Hint: A good chunk of the Great Australian Bight lies off the coast of South Australia.)

Tim Winton's 1991 tale of love and acceptance is considered to be one of the greatest works of Australian literature and it earned the author the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Two separate families, the Pickles and the Lambs, both on the run from disasters that beset them in the country, wind up sharing a giant sprawling house called Cloudstreet, on the outskirts of Perth (Western Australia). The two families are poles apart in their make-up, but adversity and the continuing state of the war (WWII) see them having to find a way to swallow their own pride to find a way to survive together. Winton's great saga, which speaks of fortitude, forgiveness, love and a little bit of magic, spans the two decades between 1944 and 1964.

Also known as "The Runaway Spy", this 2021 Jai Baidell thriller is the first novel in her "Bargains and Trade" series. In this tale, we are introduced to Joanne, a country girl who has moved to Canberra to pursue her career and that's when her world starts to fray at the seams.

The events are triggered by the disappearance of Joanne's husband, Stephen, and, in trying to track him down, she starts to find that their life together has been built upon lies. She is steadily drawn into the world of espionage and, to get Stephen back, the price is rising at every turn. At risk are not just her career, but also her family, her friends and her finances. If she is to beat the forces against her, she will need to cease being the sheltered country girl and become more ruthless than her opposition.

(Hint: Canberra, Australia's capital city is in the Australian Capital Territory.)

There are three people at the core of Keri Hulme's beautifully crafted 1984 novel. The triumvirate is made up of a Māori artist named Kerewin, a six year old mute named Simon and Simon's foster father, Joe. The latter is a man with a very short fuse and a tendency to turn nasty once riled up.

Kerewin has established a solitary life for herself on New Zealand's North Island. This is her defense mechanism and the only way that she is able to cope with the world and the pressures that it presents. However, the cocoon that she has created is soon shattered by the runaway Simon and, hot on his heels, his foster father Joe. The story gradually unwinds the truth behind each character. Violence will tear the three apart, but fate will conspire to bring them back together again.

This entangled story was Hume's first published novel, and its portrayal of violence polarized her readers. However, it won her the Booker Prize, making her the first New Zealander to win the award and the first author to do so with their debut work.

(Hint: New Zealand is known as the "Land of the Long White Cloud".)

Richard Flanagan's second novel, published in 1977, saw him short-listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award the following year.

The year is 1954 and we are introduced to three year old Sonja Buloh, who has arrived at the Tasmanian highlands from Slovenia. With her is her mother, Maria, and her father, Bojan. Her father has secured work on the local hydroelectric scheme but, unfortunately for Sonja and Maria, he is also a roaring drunk. Not long after their arrival, Sonja's mother, unable to cope with the foreign environment and her husband's drinking, walks out into a blizzard and is never heard from again.

Jumping forward thirty five years and Sonja now returns to the place of her childhood, primarily to visit her father. Rather than being a joyous reunion, it is one that shatters her strictly ordered life. The dark shadows from the past, along with the living death her father endures, impose themselves upon her with more force than she'd anticipated.

(Hint: Tasmania is known as the "Apple Isle".)

Eleanor Catton's 2013 tale is set in Hokitika on New Zealand's South Island, and it produces a mystery that will draw the reader all the way back to 1866.

Walter Moody has arrived in Hokitika with the goal of striking it rich in the middle of New Zealand's gold rush. However, instead of walking into a field full of nuggets he steps into a confrontation with twelve men and a series of unsolved mysteries. These include the disappearance of one of the region's wealthiest men, he simply vanished, a local prostitute who has tried to kill herself and the town's hapless drunk, who is found with a fortune in his own home.

What makes this 2013 Booker Prize winner so extraordinary is that, structurally, the novel is very complex. Each of the twelve men that Moody confronts at the start represent an astrological sign and they are aligned with the planets. Catton goes to great lengths to capture the historical essence of the times, draws us into the worlds of shipping, banking, the boom and bust nature of a gold rush, and provides an enterprising ghost story within her mystery. This is a startling achievement for a writer in her early twenties, and it marked her as one of the brightest stars of the authoring firmament.

Published in 1950, this is the first novel Neville Shute would publish after having settled in Australia. The "Alice" in the title is Alice Springs, which is in Australia's Northern Territory. Whilst the story is not entirely set here - it moves from England to Malaysia and Alice Springs, before winding up in a fictional town in Queensland - Alice, however, plays a significant role in the heroine's future and fortunes.

Jean Paget is a British woman who'd inherited a vast fortune but, during World War II is taken prisoner by the Japanese army in Malaysia. After the war she travels to Alice Springs searching for an airman who had, at great personal risk, assisted Jean and a group of female prisoners, during the conflict. Alice Springs impresses Jean, particularly the opportunities the town was able to provide for all its citizens, including the women, despite being isolated, miles from ... well, anywhere. Her journey eventually leads her to Willstown in outback Queensland, a place that is bereft of both potential and chances for women. It is here that she feels she can put her fortune to good use and decides to turn Willstown into a town like Alice.

Ruth Park's debut novel, "The Harp in the South" (1948) centres on an Irish/Australian Catholic family, living at 12½ Plymouth Street, Surry Hills in Sydney. Whilst the address may sound salubrious, it is a slum that houses a welter of brothels, sly grog shops and rundown boarding houses. In the heart of this hovel is Rowena "Roie" Darcy, pregnant at too young an age, forced to grow up too soon, and working two jobs, privately, in the hope she can save up the money for an abortion.

Park's novel, whilst it is now classified as a "great Australian novel", courted an enormous amount of controversy upon its release. The main bone of contention was the way that it tackled the, then, taboo subject of abortion, head on.

This novel by Helen Garner is now considered a classic of Australian literature and, by a number of scholars, it has been dubbed the "voice of a generation". However, that was not how it was initially received when it was released in 1977. Back then, it was condemned for its highly sexual nature and its uncompromising depiction of heroin addiction.

The story is built around a group of friends who all enjoy a bohemian lifestyle through the inner-city suburbs of Melbourne. At their core is Nora, a single mother who takes on a variety of jobs to make ends meet and maintain this lifestyle. She is also looking to sustain two fragile relationships with individuals that are disparate and who are slowly tearing her apart. One is her daughter Grace and the other is the flaky, drug addicted Javo. Despite the fact that Javo tends to drift in and out of her life, like a junkie, she has become dependent on him.

This 2018 coming-of-age story was Trent Dalton's debut work and it saw him win numerous awards, including being longlisted for the highly prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Set in 1983's Brisbane (Queensland) the story revolves around Eli Bell, a teenager whose life is a ball of confusion and turmoil. Despite trying to be a "good" person, Eli's plight includes the knowledge that he has no idea who his father is, his brother is mute, his junkie mother is in jail, his stepfather is a heroin dealer, and their babysitter is a notorious criminal. If you think that's a tough spot to be in... wait, there's more, as Eli's life is about to get more complicated. Out of the blue, the father he never knew shows up on his doorstep, Eli is planning to break his mother out of prison on Christmas Day and he meets (and falls in love) with the girl of his dreams... I wish you luck Eli.

(Hint: Queenslanders are nicknamed "Banana Benders".)