The Slap

WINNER OF THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS' PRIZE 2009 LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2010 'A tremendously vital book in every sense.' - Sunday Times At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly boy. The boy is not his son. It is a single act of violence, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. Christos Tsiolkas presents the impact of this apparently minor domestic incident through the eyes of eight of those who witness it. The result is an unflinching interrogation of the life of the modern family, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits...

Christos Tsiolkas is the author of four novels: Loaded (filmed as Head-On) The Jesus Man and Dead Europe, which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. The Slap won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize 2009 and was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the ALS Gold Medal. He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne.