Roger McDonald was born at Young, NSW, and educated at country schools and in Sydney.
His first novel was 1915, winner of the Age Book of the Year, and made into an eight-part ABC-TV series. His account of travelling the outback with a team of New Zealand shearers, Shearers' Motel, won the National Book Council Banjo Award for non-fiction. His internationally bestselling novel Mr Darwin's Shooter, was awarded the New South Wales, Victorian, and South Australian Premiers' Literary Awards. The Ballad of Desmond Kale won the 2006 Miles Franklin Award and South Australian Festival Prize for Fiction. A long story that became part of When Colts Ran was awarded the O. Henry Prize (USA) in 2008. A companion novel, The Following (2013) attracted readers as a eulogy to country life at the close of a hard era. His other novels are Slipstream, Rough Wallaby, Water Man, and The Slap.
