Australian author Sofie Laguna has a gift for capturing the unique voices of the children and adolescents who inhabit her novels. It is a gift she attributes to her early career as an actor, when she enjoyed portraying children as much as she enjoys writing about them now. The common thread through each of her five adult novels, which have won and been shortlisted for multiple awards, is that they feature unusual, often troubled children or young adults whose lives are difficult because they have been let down or abused by the adults who care for them.

In her début adult novel, One Foot Wrong (2008), Hester is imprisoned in her home by her ultra-religious parents. In The Eye of the Sheep (2014), which won the 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award, six-year-old Jimmy, an endearingly quirky child, grows up in poverty with a violent father. The Choke (2017) centres on Justine, a ten-year-old girl being raised by her grandfather after her mother’s disappearance, while her father – a violent criminal – remains a shadowy presence in her life. Infinite Splendours (2020), which won the 2021 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award, explores the impact of early trauma – ten-year-old Lawrence is abused by his uncle and goes on to lead a life of self-imposed exile, finding comfort only in art and nature.