Australian writer Tim Winton has won critical acclaim for novels featuring richly evoked settings and roundly drawn characters that embark on journeys of self-discovery. An avowed Christian, Winton also incorporates religious themes and imagery into his adult novels and short stories, and some critics have remarked that universal questions of good and evil, humanity and brutality lie beneath his characters' dilemmas. Los Angeles Times Book Review writer Carolyn See described Winton as "a novelist, a great one, because against all evidence and odds, he reminds us of what it is to be human, and reminds us to be proud of our humanity."

Winton has written several novels, film scripts, short stories, and books for young people. Shallows was the first of his novels to find its way into American bookstores, appearing in 1984--the same year it won Australia's esteemed Miles Franklin Award for literature. Set in a small...