Catvinkle and the Missing Tulips

Elliot Perlman (Author)

Elliot Perlman’s debut novel, Three Dollars, garnered significant acclaim, winning the Age Book of the Year Award, the Betty Trask Award (UK), and the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Book of the Year Award. It was also shortlisted for the John Llewellyn-Rhys/Mail On Sunday Book of the Year Award (UK) and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Perlman co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Three Dollars, which earned the Australian Film Critics’ Circle Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the A.F.I. Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

His collection of stories, The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming, was a bestseller in the US, recognized as a New York Times Book Review ‘Editors’ Choice’, and won the Steele Rudd Award for the best Australian short story collection.

Perlman’s second novel, Seven Types of Ambiguity, achieved bestseller status in France, where Le Monde hailed it as ‘one of the best novels of recent years, a complete success’. In Germany, it was celebrated as a ‘literary sensation’ by Deutschlandradio, an ‘impressive, iridescent all-encompassing view of feeling’ by Der Spiegel, and praised for possessing ‘the virtues of the great modern European novel’ by Süddeutsche Zeitung. The novel also became a bestseller in the United States, with the New York Times noting ‘traces of Dickens’s range and of George Eliot’s generous humanist spirit’. It was named a New York Times Book Review ‘Editors’ Choice’, a New York Times Book Review ‘Notable Book of the Year’, and a Washington Post ‘Editors’ Choice’. Additionally, it was selected as one of the Washington Post’s all-time dozen favourite books ‘on the pain of love’. In the UK, The Observer described it as ‘a colossal achievement….a tour de force…(in which) at the end, in a comprehensive, an almost Shakespearian way, Perlman picks up every loose thread and knots it’, and the Sunday Telegraph named it a ‘Book of the Year’. In Australia, it was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for Fiction.

The Street Sweeper, Perlman’s subsequent novel, was lauded as ‘Excellent … harrowing, humane and brilliant’ by The Times (UK) and a ‘towering achievement: a strikingly modern literary novel’ by Entertainment Weekly (US). The San Francisco Chronicle described it as ‘an epic tale that spans decades and bridges generations while chronicling the predominant chapters of racial persecution perpetrated in the darkest hours of the twentieth century’. The review further noted that Perlman ‘shines a fresh light on the struggle of the American civil rights movement’, that the ‘narrative pull is breathtaking’, and that he ‘pulls off the supreme feat of articulating the unspeakable’. The novel was praised for working and mattering ‘because of the expert way Perlman has recorded both the agonized howl of the past and the plaintive echoes of the present’. The Washington Post called it a ‘wonderfully rich, engaging and multilayered story … from an author of rare erudition and compassion.’ Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, stating that Perlman ‘brilliantly makes personal both the Holocaust and the civil rights movement, and crafts a moving and literate page-turner.’ The Jerusalem Post added that Perlman ‘burnishes his reputation as a masterful storyteller who captures the cadences of consciousness and conversation and the varieties and vagaries of cruelty, courage and compassion … You will, in all likelihood, find it unforgettable.’

Elliot Perlman’s first children’s novel, The Adventures of Catvinkle, is described as ‘an instant children’s classic, that you enjoy as much as the little ones you know, and that you start giving as a gift because of its inherent, feel-good message’ (Sunday Age). Books+Publishing called it ‘a charming and whimsical tale … replete with gentle lessons … about empathy, bravery and friendship … a simply delightful and easy-to-read story with laugh-out-loud dialogue that doesn’t talk down to its readers.’ The Sydney Morning Herald noted it as ‘exactly the sort of book I loved being given as a child, a book you can cherish.’ Magpies highlighted its gentle treatment of themes of social inclusion, anti-racism, and anti-bullying, with ‘many quirky, humorous moments’. Better Reading declared it ‘A gorgeous book guaranteed to give great joy.’ The Adventures of Catvinkle was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book 2019 and was shortlisted for the 2019 Children’s Peace Literature Award.

Perlman’s novel Maybe the Horse Will Talk is described as a ‘thriller-like, stylish, compelling novel that manages at once to limn injustices wrought by corporate acquisitiveness, misogyny and discrimination, and to affirm the transformative capacity of empathy.’ The Weekend Australian noted that while possessing ‘a deep and steady seriousness’, it is ‘also funny as well as exhilarating and humane, pitching longing, love and kindness hopefully and inspiringly against violence.’ The Sydney Morning Herald called it ‘A timely look at sexual harassment and corporate corruption that manages to be laugh-out-loud funny’. The review also highlighted the ‘novelist’s mastery of the sentence… in the rapid-fire dialogue between his characters’. It concluded that ‘If Maybe the Horse will Talk stands apart in Perlman’s oeuvre for its intention to make readers smile, it continues the author’s interest in addressing social concerns through fiction.’

Elliot Perlman is the recipient of the Queensland Premier’s Award for Advancing Public Debate. He has been recognized by the Times Literary Supplement (UK) as ‘Australia’s outstanding social novelist’, by Le Nouvel Observateur (France) as the ‘Zola d’Australie’, and by Lire (France) as ‘the classic of tomorrow’, one of the ‘50 most important writers in the world’.

Catvinkle and the Missing Tulips, a children’s novel and sequel to The Adventures of Catvinkle, is scheduled for publication in October 2020.

Laura Stitzel (Illustrator)

Laura Stitzel is an independent artist based in Melbourne, Australia. She has been actively involved in illustration, animation, and writing in Australia and Canada since 2008.

As an illustrator of children’s books, Laura’s work includes Elliot Perlman’s The Adventures of Catvinkle (Penguin Random House), as well as her own picture books, Mr Mo Starts to Grow (Hachette Australia) and Moonlight Mums (Penguin Random House). Her art has also featured in numerous children’s television series over the past decade. She has contributed background art and character animation to programs such as the Emmy Award-winning Peg + Cat, Disney’s Space Chickens in Space, Warner Bros.’ Ginger Snaps, and the world’s longest-running children’s series, Arthur.

Laura has also illustrated and animated for a diverse range of media, including commercials, short films, print media, and television series for all age groups.

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