Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (Vintage)

THE horrors of life in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during the Second World War are graphically explored in this novel.

But a parallel story-line also traces Australian army surgeon Dorrigo Evans' love affair with his uncle's wife back in Aussie and his luke-warm relationship with his own wife Ella.

Evans is a complex character, hailed after the war as a hero, but a serial adulterer consumed by self-loathing.

The author's father survived the Burma death railway, and the atrocities imposed by the Japanese on Australian soldiers are described in great detail.