Highways To A War

'A quite outstanding novel about the Indochina war, the best I have read since Graham Greene's The Quiet American' Richard West, Literary Review

A subtle unfolding of character and history camouflaged in battle-dress-an absorbing portrait of lives lived at the edges of terror and beauty. Koch is a powerful writer and this is a fine book

A gripping tale, a convincing, page turning evocation of recent history, full of compelling characters, tumultuous events and just plain excitement

Magnificent-in its humanity and honesty, and the maturity of its storytelling, it belongs with the finest products of that sad and wasteful history

Christopher Koch is of Irish, English and German ancestry. For a good deal of his life he was a broadcasting producer, working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Sydney. He has lived and worked in London and elsewhere overseas. He has been a full-time writer since 1972, winning international praise and a number of awards for his five previous novels - many of which are translated in a number of European countries. In 1995, Koch was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature.

When Mike Langford, a war photographer with a reputation for unusual risk-taking, disappears inside Cambodia, he becomes a mythic figure in the minds of his friends. The search for him which is at the heart of this novel explores the personal highways that led him to war, and to his ultimate fate.

Christopher Koch

These novels (Out of Ireland and Highways to a War) will surely become Australian classics

Robert Devereux is a splendid literary invention. Koch is magnificent in Out of Ireland... he has englarged our understanding of the capabilities of fiction

When you have read Out of Ireland you will have joined a circle of friends who lived and loved and struggled 150 years ago, and you will wonder how long it will be before you will read as great and compelling a book again

Richard O'Brien, Ambassador of Ireland to Australia

Some of the finest writing in Australian fiction

A leader of the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, Robert Devereux is an Irish gentleman who is prepared to hazard a life of privilege in the fight for his country's freedom. 
 
Transported to Van Diemen's Land as a political prisoner, he enters a life that greatly changes him, falling in love with a young Irish convict woman. 
 
Through Kathleen O'Rahilly he comes to know the people he's long romanticised; but his cause, and the life he has lost, will not let him go.

Christopher Koch

Praise for Out Of Ireland

These novels (Out of Ireland and Highways to a War) will surely become Australian classics

Robert Devereux is a splendid literary invention. Koch is magnificent in Out of Ireland... he has englarged our understanding of the capabilities of fiction

When you have read Out of Ireland you will have joined a circle of friends who lived and loved and struggled 150 years ago, and you will wonder how long it will be before you will read as great and compelling ...

These novels (Out of Ireland and Highways to a War) will surely become Australian classics

Robert Devereux is a splendid literary invention. Koch is magnificent in Out of Ireland... he has englarged our understanding of the capabilities of fiction

When you have read Out of Ireland you will have joined a circle of friends who lived and loved and struggled 150 years ago, and you will wonder how long it will be before you will read as great and compelling ...

These novels (Out of Ireland and Highways to a War) will surely become Australian classics

Robert Devereux is a splendid literary invention. Koch is magnificent in Out of Ireland... he has englarged our understanding of the capabilities of fiction

When you have read Out of Ireland you will have joined a circle of friends who lived and loved and struggled 150 years ago, and you will wonder how long it will be before you will read as great and compelling ...

Books by Christopher Koch

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