Longlisted for the Stella Prize 2018

This Water is the last work of fiction by Beverley Farmer, one of Australia's great prose stylists, and a pioneer of women's writing in this country. It is a collection of five interwoven tales, each has a woman at its centre: in each the women speak, act, think for themselves, in opposing or escaping from an oppressive authority.

Praise for This Water: Five Tales:

'Farmer's prose is virtuosic, she is a stylist unlike any other living Australian writer.' — Australian Book Review

'Like the incoming tide, she probes everywhere, and her writing, like that of Gerard Manley Hopkins, revels in the peaks and troughs of the English language.' — Inside Story

'Splendid…lightly touched by the world of myths and legends…illuminated by Farmer's masterly control of structure, tone and imagery.' — Sydney Morning Herald