An astonishing, wonderful memoir of an extraordinary life

In a memoir that’s as evocative and restless as its author – flitting from Doris Lessing’s abode in London to the Indian home of her Rajasthani prince “companion” – Davidson interrogates what family, freedom and home mean when you never truly belong anywhere

A triumph

An extraordinary memoir … An enthralling, miraculous story, clear as the brilliant constellations of the night sky

The zigzagging life of an adventurer … A fine and observant descriptive writer

Lyrical and beautifully textured … The book’s multi-layered structure allows disparate recollections to interrupt the chronological narrative in evocative ways, and its title suggests an unfinished symphony, with music and the act of writing serving as central motifs … The strength of Unfinished Woman is its honesty about Robyn Davidson’s difficult emotional and creative journey, and it is propelled by her unsparing self-awareness and willingness to confront her past’

In her twenties, Davidson trekked 1,700 miles through the Australian wilderness. This led to the bestselling book Tracks and global fame. Half a century later she has written about what motivated her – including the tragic early death of her mother

Davidson captures an exciting and complex life with insight and humour … Davidson’s life has been full of adventures, encounters, love affairs and losses. She pulls them apart, examines them and lays them before us so as to question what sort of life we are living

This is a beautiful story about finding a home wherever you go and understanding your own narrative

Immersive and profound, Robyn Davidson’s Unfinished Woman is a portal to understanding a daughter’s grief. “We take our mothers into us; that is where they live,” she writes. So much of her mother’s life may remain unknown, but through memoir, Davidson completes what she considers an impossible task: crafting a moving portrait of her mother. This book will stay with me

Stunning. Robyn Davidson lives and writes with an explorer’s courage, but this book is more than an adventure story. Unfinished Woman is an unfiltered glimpse into the fierce pursuit of freedom and connection, woven with a mother-daughter bond untouchable by time

A powerful memoir, and an unforgettable read

Searching, captivating and miraculously honest. Davidson has a voice we want to travel with, and to know

Praise for Tracks: This will rank among the best of the books of exploration and travel and, like them, is a record of self-discovery and self-proving

An unforgettably powerful book, beautiful, thrilling and ferociously brave … Davidson’s timeless story of her astonishing journey gripped me from the first page to the last

It gets to the heart of landscape and solitude and becomes a venture to the interior of more than one dimension as its author approaches the hinterland of her own thorny psyche

An absorbing record of human endeavour and courage, a vivid picture of an extraordinary country by a perceptive and sensitive observer, and the story of an inner journey, of “shedding burdens”

As eccentric, undisciplined, flashily brilliant and pig-headed as its author … Ms Davidson is a born writer, her book deeply moving

Vivid and vivacious … Davidson is as natural a writer as she is an adventurer

Davidson’s has been an operatic life, punctuated by dramas of love and death, populated with colourful characters and backed by exotic scenery … I loved reading this book.

Davidson pieces together and attempts to understand who her mother was as a person and, by extension, who she is. This is a beautiful story about finding a home wherever you go and understanding your own narrative