Grenville's Commonwealth

Australia again. The 2006 Commonwealth Writer's Prize has been won by Kate Grenville for her The Secret River, a novel about a convict's struggle to build a life for his family after being shipped to a 19th-century Australian penal colony.

"This is a huge honour in part because this book started as such a personal story about my great-great-great grandfather who arrived as a convict in 1806," said Grenville, whose grandfather was sent to Australia with his wife and children after stealing lumber in London.