Bring Larks and Heroes (1967) by esteemed Australian writer Thomas Kenneally won the Miles Franklin Award in 1967.

Although set in a fictional British penal colony in the late 18th century, Kenneally has – at a time when Australia was still in thrall to the British empire – exposed the brutality of the early days of colonization, of invasion.

The protagonist is Corporal Phelim Halloran, an Irishman who once wanted to be a priest. Halloran is a good man and he ends up realising he has more in common with political prisoners than with the Protestant officers he reports too.

A significant character in the story is Thomas Ewers who was raised in the kinship care of his aunt. Ewers is now a felon, transported to the colony from Scotland because of forgery. He’s also an artist who is ordered to paint, eg, he is ordered to paint a kingfisher for an ornithologically inclined surgeon.

When the surgeon’s wife wants more than to watch Ewers painting and Ewers refuses her, Ewers is arrested. Despite Halloran pointing out to his “superiors” that Ewers is a eunuch, those “superiors” have the man executed.