Thomas Keneally's literary achievements have been inspired by some of history's most intriguing events and characters, but in a rare reversal of time his brilliantly imagined new novel takes us into a near future that uncannily is all too familiar.

In a detention camp where he is neither granted asylum nor readied to be sent back to his native land, a detainee bides his time. He insists on being called Alan Sheriff, a westernization of his given name; he was born in a country that had once been a friend to the United States but is now its enemy. Little else is known about Sheriff until a writer comes to interview him. Sheriff decides that the time is right to tell his visitor his story and embarks on the unraveling of events that have led to his current state with extraordinary detail — the basis of which forms this novel within a novel.

Sheriff is a celebrated novelist in a country in which its brutal leader orders Sheriff to ghostwrite a work of fiction: an uneasy combination of invention, autobiography, and polemic — the very publication of which would overturn Western sanctions and shame the United States. The deadline is impossible, but the government enforcers guard his house and stalk his every move. It is not long before Sheriff becomes the tyrant's caged canary, as he races against the deadline that threatens to cost him everything and everyone he holds dear.

In a work reminiscent of the classic Fahrenheit 451, Thomas Keneally has written a dazzling story of a man caught between the demands of his government and his impulse to run for his life. Provocative and possibly prophetic, The Tyrant's Novel is a literary achievement inspired by recent history's most intriguing events and characters. Here, Keneally once more combines, as he did in Schindler's List, his fictional talent with his engagement in world politics.

"In this gripping political allegory, the author of Schindler's List examines a more contemporary instance of people trying to survive in the ethical quagmire of totalitarianism. The protagonist is Alan Sheriff, a writer living in a nameless desert country ruled by a despot who styles himself the 'Great Uncle' and who bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain recently deposed dictator. A member of the Westernized cultural elite with a fat book contract from Random House, Alan feels himself immune from the political pressures and poverty surrounding him. Then one day he is whisked off to receive a commission from the tyrant himself: to ghostwrite a novel for Great Uncle that will undermine support for sanctions in the West — on a quite literal one-month deadline. Fearing for himself and his friends, torn between remaining in his gilded cage or striking out for a precarious existence abroad, Alan must make agonizing compromises with the truth and his art. Keneally treats this potentially lurid scenario in a realistic and enthralling fashion that fully humanizes all the characters, secret police goons included. In his hands, the clich of the suffering artiste struggling to avoid selling out takes on real depth and pathos. This is an exquisitely wrought study of moral corruption in a convincing — and frighteningly modern — political dystopia. Agent, Amanda Urban. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Australia's Keneally offers the most significant American novel of some time, much as Graham Greene in 1955 with The Quiet American....Brilliant, riveting, conscience-driven political novel: rank it with the greats." Kirkus Reviews

"The Tyrant's Novel is more amorous and unpredictable than its grim setting would suggest. Mr. Keneally sees horror in this nation and its iron rule, but he sees all manner of absurdity, too." Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"What begins as an intelligent but somewhat emotionally sterile story...grows in tension, becoming an absolutely breathtaking demonstration of dictatorship: how it works, but more importantly and resonantly, the strategies necessary to live under it." Brad Hooper, Booklist

"This crisp, smart new novel is [Keneally's] most accomplished recent work..." The Sunday Morning Herald

"Keneally is not only one of the best living Australian writers — and among the pantheon, as well — he is a torchbearer." The Advertiser

"A provocative, thoughtful fable and, yes, a good story." Sunday Telegraph

"Written with terrific verve....[The Tyrant's Novel] is thrilling stuff." Weekend Australian

In a work that evokes the classic cautionary tale Fahrenheit 451, Keneally masters the gripping perspective of a man caught between the unconscionable demands of his government and the meager prospect of running for his life.