A Better Place

Author(s): Stephen Daisley

NZ Fiction | Ockham NZ Book Awards

In a novel of stark and lyrical beauty, award-winning author Stephen Daisley portrays the brutal effects of war on two New Zealand brothers.


The old people in the district would often say that Roy was not quite the same after he come back.


There was a brother. A twin brother, Tony. Tony Mitchell, different boy but a good rugby player. Bit of a mental case, they said, but Roy would have none of it. He always stayed close to Tony when they were growing up. They both went off to fight, must have been 1940. Only the one come back, though.


Crete, they thought. We lost Tony over there.


From Stephen Daisley, winner of the Prime Minister's Award for Traitor and the NZ Ockham Prize for Coming Rain, a new novel about brothers at war. Beautifully written, brutal, tender and visceral, A Better Place is about love in its many forms.


Product Information

A finalist for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2024 - The Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction

Stephen Daisley was born in 1955 and grew up in the North Island of New Zealand. He has worked on sheep and cattle stations, on oil and gas construction sites and as a truck driver, among many other jobs.


His first novel, Traitor, won the 2011 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction. Coming Rain won the Ockham Prize in 2015. Stephen lives in Western Australia.

General Fields

  • : 9781922458681
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : 01 January 2023
  • : 01 July 2023
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Stephen Daisley
  • : Paperback
  • : English
  • : 224
  • : FV