Currowan by Bronwyn Adcock | Black Inc.

Currowan: The Story of a Fire and a Community During Australia's Worst Summer

Awards for Currowan

  • Winner, 2022 Walkley Book Award
  • Longlisted, 2022 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award

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About the author

Bronwyn Adcock

Bronwyn Adcock is an award-winning Australian journalist and writer. She has worked as a radio current-affairs reporter and documentary maker for the ABC, as a video journalist for SBS’s Dateline and as a freelance writer, including for …

More about Bronwyn Adcock



Praise for Currowan

‘A searing account of surviving Australia’s Black Summer, laced with grim warnings about how exposed the country still is to more catastrophic bushfires.’ —Michael Rowland, editor of Black Summer

‘A vivid and terrifying glimpse of not just our future but our present. Every Australian should read this book.‘ —Sophie Cunningham, author of Warning: The Story of Cyclone Tracy

‘Bronwyn Adcock offers a powerful, devastating account of Australia’s worst bushfire disaster from ground zero. This is a story of heartbreaking loss, as well as humble acts of care and bravery that helped save lives and property and find ways forward. Adcock offers us a window into the human story of the climate crisis, beyond the science and politics, to why action now matters so very much.’ —Amanda McKenzie, CEO, Climate Council

‘A brilliant piece of reportage from the inside of the Black Summer maelstrom – and a frightening glimpse of the future that awaits us all as we ignore the causes of climate change.’ —Adrian Hyland, author of Kinglake-350

‘A raw account of the Black Summer bushfires, combining vivid eyewitness testimony with a storyteller’s eye for detail and nuance. This story matters: not just as a memoir of loss and destruction and ragged weeks under orange skies, but as a warning for next time. Bronwyn Adcock brings this horror fire season to life, forcing us to ask whether the right lessons have been learned. For a population fractured and distracted by a pandemic, accounts like this are essential reading if we’re to have any chance of preventing a recurrence.’ —Scott Ludlam, author of Full Circle

‘In this enthralling narrative, Bronwyn Adcock takes us to the burning frontier of a warming world. Her visceral account of the rampaging “beast” that was the Currowan fire reveals the terror and trauma of Australia’s interminable Black Summer. It also poses vital questions about the future of life on the fire continent. This is contemporary history at its best: urgent, illuminating and utterly compelling.’ —Tom Griffiths, author of The Art of Time Travel

‘Vivid, visceral, adrenaline-filled, true: this is our mind-blowing new reality. Currowan is a throat-gripping, essential read for all Australians … for all humans. Be prepared. This book reads like a thriller and will haunt like a prophesy.’ —Jonica Newby, author of Beyond Climate Grief

‘Adcock’s heart is racing from the first page, and so was mine. This hectic, harrowing account of the Black Summer inferno is told from a journalist’s first-hand captivity on an east coast apparently on fire from top to bottom, but deftly manages to tell the dramatic stories of many others who watched the flames come on. For those of us who were in the fires, this is a story telling urgent truths of an extraordinary ordeal; for those who didn’t see a flame, who want to know what our communities have been through, what can be learned, and what faces us in the future, it is an essential one.’ —Kate Holden, author of The Winter Road