Robert Macklin is the prize-winning author of 25 non-fiction works – mostly of Australian history - and four novels. His biographies of prominent Australians range from Albert Jacka VC to Hamilton Hume, the great journalist, G.E. Morrison and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.   His portrait of BHP, The Big Fella, with Peter Thompson won the $30,000 Blake Dawson prize for Business Literature and his histories of Norfolk Island and the early years of colonial Australia received four best book awards from the Canberra Critics Circle.   Born in Queensland and educated at the University of Queensland and the ANU, he has lectured on Australia literature at three Chinese Universities in Shanghai and Sian. His best-selling Castaway (Hachette 2019) drew on Donald Thomson’s research of the Aboriginal people of North Queensland and is optioned for a TV series.