Cirrus@Austlit

Robert Power's story about a man's visit to New York, and his callous treatment of a lonely waitress he meets in a diner there, has come second in The Age short-story award.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 'Eleven year old Oscar Flowers is on a quest to make sense of the strange world of adults that surrounds him in the seaside town of Tidetown. The bizarre behaviour of his parents and great aunt impels him to search for the blue tiger, a powerful and beautiful animal that will save his family from themselves. Mrs April, the town's librarian, helps Oscar in his pursuit of knowledge and generously shares her great love of books with him. A deep and wondrous friendship develops. Yet as Oscar falls under the influence of his peers, the fishmonger's peculiar twin daughters, Perch and Carp, he becomes embroiled in a dark crime of vengeance with seemingly disastrous consequences.

'Hugely positive and an imaginative tour de force In Search of the Blue Tiger is at once a celebration of books and reading, an affecting love story between a widowed town librarian and a lonely troubled child and a gripping testament to the way that any of us can move beyond the mistakes of our past to a new beginning.' (Publication summary)