When paramedic Bruce Pike is called out to deal with another teenage adventure gone
wrong, he knows better than his partner - better than the parents - what happened and how.
Thirty years ago, that dead boy could have been him.
'It's unlikely Winton has ever written as well as he writes in Breath ... its seeming simplicity is
deceptive, for beneath its pared-back surfaces lies all the steel of a major novelist operating
at full throttle in a territory he has spent 25 years making his own.' James Bradley, The Age
'Breath seems to cut through everything, and to speak with unusual honesty... he does what
a great writer can do; to make us see, while sitting in our armchairs, exactly what it would be
like to stand on a bit of hardboard while a 30-foot wave defeats our attempts to float on it.'
Philip Hensher, Spectator
'Breath is about moving out of your depth, getting in over your head, having your soul
damaged beyond repair... But against all this pointless sorrow, there remains the
evanescent beauty of the world, and Winton matches that with limitlessly beautiful prose.'
Carolyn See, Washington Post
Winner of the 2009 Miles Franklin Award
Winner of the 2008 Age Book of the Year: Fiction Award
Winner of the 2008 Australian Independent Booksellers Indie Award