Shortlisted for the 2017 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Non-Fiction Quicksilver begins on a quiet day in contemplation of a lizard deep in the heart of the outback but quickly moves to the Russia of Tolstoy and Gorky, and on to other lands and times, bringing into play universal questions about the essential nature of the human condition. Rothwell's chief subject is always the inland- the mystic Kurangara cult that flourished in the Kimberley; the story of the Western Desert artists, their works and their eventual fate; the tracks across the wilderness of Colonel Warburton and George Grey; the bush dreams and intuitions of D. H. Lawrence and the landscape word-portraits by the great biographer of nature Eric Rolls. Rothwell, Nicholas -- Travel -- Western Australia | Aboriginal Australians -- Social life and customs. | Art, Aboriginal Australian. | Western Australia -- Description and travel. | Australian