The Commandant

The Commandant is an unforgettable tale of power, duty and humanity, from one of Australia's most esteemed writers.

Jessica Anderson was born in Gayndah, Queensland in 1916. She left school at the age of sixteen before briefly studying art at Brisbane Technical College. For most of her life she lived in Sydney.

Anderson wrote stories and adapted novels for radio before she published her first novel, An Ordinary Lunacy, in 1963. In 1978, she won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Tirra Lirra by the River, and again in 1980 for The Impersonators, which also won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. In 1987 her story collection, Stories from the Warm Zone, won the Age Book of the Year award.

Jessica Anderson died in July 2010, at the age of ninety-three.

Carmen Callil founded Virago Press in 1972 and later became managing director of Chatto & Windus and the Hogarth Press. Since 1995 she has worked as a writer and critic. She is the author of Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family and Fatherland, and co-author, with Colm Toibin, of The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English since 1950.