UWA Publishing (UWAP) has acquired ANZ rights to Graham Akhurst’s young adult novel Borderland!

Set in Brisbane and the fictional rural town of Gambari in western Queensland, Borderland explores issues of urban youth identity, cultural connection, land rights, fracking and its ecological impacts, through protagonist Jono as he begins to understand his place in the world.

Borderland was previously acquired by Hachette. However; Graham was announced in 2019 as the first Indigenous recipient of the Fulbright W.G Walker scholarship for the highest ranked postgraduate applicant. He arrived in New York City in August 2019 to fulfil that program – and completed an MFA at Hunter College in 2021. His time in NYC however, overlapped with Covid and those terrifying, uncertain times; and with his new international experience and the disruption to the publishing industry, Graham decided that working with a smaller independent press better aligned with his vision for the book. Hachette very kindly agreed and supported Graham’s decision, and he’s now thrilled and delighted to be among the first commercial YA fiction acquisitions for UWAP!

Borderland is set to be published in the second half of 2023.