Showing results by author "Grantlee Kieza" in All Categories

Bangka Island, 1942. Australian Army nurse Vivian Bullwinkel was just 26 when Japanese soldiers marched her and her fellow nurses into the shallow waters of a remote beach to be executed. Miraculously, Vivian would be the lone survivor. The Lieutenant-Colonel would also be the first woman to be honoured with a statue at the Australian War Memorial for her extraordinary bravery and service.

Balladeer, bushman, soldier, foreign correspondent - the remarkable life of Australia's greatest storyteller. A. B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson is rightly recognised as Australia’s greatest storyteller and most celebrated poet, the boy from the bush who became the voice of a generation. He gave us our unofficial national anthem, ‘Waltzing Matilda’, and treasured ballads such as ‘The Man from Snowy River’ and ‘Clancy of the Overflow’, vivid creations that helped to define our national identity.

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and businesspeople.

When Ned Kelly and his band of young tearaways ambushed and killed three brave policemen in a remote mountain camp in 1878, they sparked the biggest and most expensive manhunt Australia had seen. The desperate search would end when Kelly and his gang, wearing suits of armour, tried to derail a train before waging their final bloody gun battle with police in the small Victorian town of Glenrowan.

Fearless, sharp-eyed and handsome, Matthew Flinders was one of the greatest of all maritime adventurers and undertook one of the most important voyages of discovery – to circumnavigate and map the famed Great Southern Land. Together with his Aboriginal interpreter and guide, Kuringgai man Bungaree, and his beloved rescue cat Trim, Flinders explored the furthest reaches of Australia and meticulously recorded its rugged coastlines on maps so accurate they are still used today.

As a teenage orphan in England in 1791, Mary Reibey was sentenced to death for stealing a horse. When police cornered her, she was dressed as a boy, and she maintained that disguise until she was unmasked at her trial. Due to her 'tender age', Reibey was spared the hangman's noose and sentenced to seven years' transportation to the colony of New South Wales. With the odds stacked against her, Reibey went on to become Australia's first female business tycoon and the richest woman in the colony, founding the Bank of New South Wales, now one of the nation's biggest financial institutions.

Explorer, naturalist and president of Britain's Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks was a larger-than-life character best known for his promotion of science. In 1768 Banks joined Captain James Cook's expedition to the South Pacific. The 30,000 specimens he brought back generated enormous interest, as did the sometimes racy written account of the journey, which chronicled his frequent amorous exploits.

While we know much about the iconic outlaw Ned Kelly, his mother Ellen Kelly has been largely overlooked by Australian writers and historians...until now. By best-selling biographer Grantlee Kieza, Mrs Kelly is the astonishing story of one of Australia's most notorious women and her wild family, but it's also the story of the making of Australia, from struggling colony and backwater to modern nation.

Grantlee Kieza, the author of critically acclaimed best-selling biographies of such important figures reveals the extraordinary rise, devastating fall and enduring legacy of an Australian icon.

Hudson Fysh was a decorated World War I hero who not only founded Australia's national airline, Qantas, but steered it for almost half a century from its humble beginnings with two rickety biplanes to the age of the jumbo jets. One of Australia's celebrated Light Horsemen at Gallipoli, Fysh went on to fly death-defying missions for Lawrence of Arabia with the Australian Flying Corps and battle Germans in deadly dogfights in the skies over Palestine. 

Boxing has given Australian sport some of our most inspiring champions and captivating tales. Stories of underdogs overcoming heartbreaks and hurdles, of endless courage and dedication, triumph and tragedy. From the first brawls in old Sydney Town, the travelling boxing tents across the country and the first black world heavyweight champion to today's most celebrated fighters, Australia's pre-eminent boxing journalist and former assistant trainer to some of the ring's most talented champions presents our nation's greatest boxing stories.