Writings
Wayne Ashton is a painter and author.
His new novel Equator is a "glorious tale of fear and love in the age of DNA", and was published by Fremantle Press in August 2010.
His first novel Under a Tin-Grey Sari was published to critical and popular acclaim, also by Fremantle Press (2002). A second edition of Under a Tin-Grey Sari was published in August 2010 by Fremantle Press.
His radio dramas The Aunt, The Tasman Angel from Hell, and The Oils and Mirrors of Dorothy Hoffkoff were produced and broadcast by ABC Radio National.
He has exhibited in 12 solo shows including the group shows Australians in New York at Gelabert Galleries Broadway (1994) and Australians in London at Mall Galleries Trafalgar Square (1995).
Wayne Ashton has British and Pakistani family origins.
EquatorGotta mix, gotta mingle, hup two three, over the hungry mountains and over the hungry seas
"Equator is a glorious tale of fear and love in the age of DNA. The year is 1947. The boy Carlos slips over the orphanage wall of the hacienda at the Golfo de Valencia in search of the village girl Rosa who has captured his heart. Instead he finds a life on board his boat, the Pinski, and a compass that steers him into an archipelago of lovers shipping their lives headlong into the 21st century. Shifting between hemispheres and between the love affairs, friendships and enmities of generations, Equator is an intricate and expansive love story and a powerful ode to the earth's fragile oceans." |
 Fresh news: The novel Equator contains seven exclusive new drawings by Wayne Ashton and the originals can be viewed here. |
Read a sample chapter extract from Equator
Read more and purchase at Fremantle Press
Under a Tin-Grey SariShortlisted at the West Australian Premier's Awards, Under a Tin-Grey Sari is a sensual love story set in 1967 in the bustling city of Chittagong, East Pakistan. It is a time of boom and ferment, when a household cook may dream of fame and fortune, a bearer brazenly spit in the drinks of oblivious sahibs, an ayah sublimely seduce a minisahib, and a letterwriter link the dead with the living. Read a sample chapter extract from Under a Tin-Grey Sari Read more and purchase at Fremantle Press
"... an artful, savvy and intimate depiction of a particular season, era and place, showing its cleverness most in its specificity" |
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"... Your book is a superb achievement. I was engrossed and transported all the way. You create a microcosm of Chittagong in the 1960s which contains the macrocosm of colonialism in the world. The language is supple, playful, erotic - the book is not only about the world but about how we imagine the world. It highlights the possibilities of existence, as well being a rich sensual journey. You narrate what could be seen as a tragic story while maintaining a witty, light-hearted tone. As one writer to another, let me say I stand in complete admiration of your original turns of phase and ability to sustain such a big imaginative work."
Adelaide poet Mike Ladd
"... sensual and lush, the novel is at one level a tale of love and longing, of dreams and betrayal, yet its simplicity is offset with such a finely honed and playful irony that it's hard not to see the novel as a comment on larger events"
Canberra Times
"... an astoundingly unusual debut ... In language that is both lush and robust and with a voice entirely original, Ashton creates a mesmerising world apart"
Gleebooks
"... this novel belongs to itself, abides by its own rules, much as the people of Chittagong are content to thrive in a world of their own"
The Lane Bookshop
"... a witty and simply told tale of desire, betrayal and unreason, to which the reader effortlessly and willingly succumbs"
Dymocks
"... a lilting, sensual evocation of the landscape of his childhood"
The Age
"... Ashton's debut novel is a sensual, beautifully written mini-masterpiece. Almost every page groans with sex, or love, or death, or laughter ... the best Australian novel I have read all year"
Readings Magazine
" ... a lush, sensual and beautifully written tale of love and heartache. A book to be savoured"
Weekend Australian
"a stunning book"
The Age
"... a remarkable debut novel ... lush with possibilities"
Weekend Australian
"... a tour de force ... a bravura tale told with gusto and a lot of empathy"
The Daily Star
Wayne Ashton: "This is a four-page illustrated essay on a journey to Shark Bay, one of Australia's greatest oceanic wilderness areas; and from the grandeur of the place, the essay becomes a pattern of thoughts on creativity.
Shark Bay's waters are home to the ocean's most spectacular creatures; read the essay because you will fall for the place, and then check out "Shark Bay" wherever you can. If you are planning a trip to Western Australia, or Australia, this is a place that will astonish, amaze and, mostly, it will transport the sensibilities hugely forward into the 21st century, guaranteed. Good Luck, good Journey."
• News and recent work (pdf)
• A4 version (pdf)
Other coastal travels that have given rise to paintings and ink drawings::
Lagos Harbour • Penang • Cape Gloucester Whitsundays • Broome • Shark Bay • Steep Point • Straits of Malacca • Pangkor • Greens Pool • Kalbarri • Lancelin • Geraldton • Byron Bay • Patonga • Pearl Beach • Maitland Bay • Stanwell Park • Augusta • Walpole • Moore River • Jervis Bay • Point Perpendicular • Silica Bay • Stoney's Creek • Hyams • Huskisson • Chinaman's • Rottnest • Dunsborough • Margaret River • Wyadup • Yallingup • Useless Loop • Denmark (WA) • King George Sound • Bundeena & Royal National Park • Derby-Fitzroy • Cairns & Green Island • Cunjurong
