Seven Emus - Xavier Herbert Australian Classic

Bronco Jones is the owner of Seven Emus station and lives there with his wife Possum and their family. When Appleby Gaunt, known as the Baron, makes his appearance in this happy existence, the effect of his overblown ideas on Bronco's fortunes is calamitous. Then the anthropologist, Mr Goborrow, arrives to study the Emu Totem and Bronco finds his loyalty to his indigenous ancestors severely tested.

Xavier Herbert was born in 1901 in Geraldton, Western Australia. Although he trained as a pharmacist and began studying medicine in Melbourne, in 1926 he gave up this professional focus, moving first to Sydney then travelling further north. He took up manual work and began writing in earnest. During a trip to the United Kingdom, he met Sadie Norden in 1931 and married her in 1933 after they had returned to Australia. Capricornia (1939) remains Herbert's most acclaimed work, being awarded both the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and the Sesquicentenary Literature Prize. Poor Fellow My Country (1978) won the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Xavier died in Alice Springs in November 1984.