Publisher's synopsis
‘Deadly, unna?’ He was always saying that. All the Nungas did, but Dumby more than any of them. Dumby Red and Blacky don’t have a lot in common. Dumby’s the star of the footy team, he’s got a killer smile and the knack with girls, and he’s a Nunga. Blacky’s a gutless wonder, needs braces, never knows what to say, and he’s white. But they’re friends… and it could be deadly, unna? This gutsy novel, set in a small coastal town in South Australia is a rites-of-passage story about two boys confronting the depth of racism that exists all around them.
Phillip Gwynne’s first novel Deadly Unna? the literary hit of 1998, has now sold over 180,000 copies. It was made into the feature film Australian Rules for which Phillip won an AFI award. The sequel, Nukkin Ya, was published to great acclaim in 2000.
He has also written The Worst Team Ever, Born to Bake, and A Chook Called Harry in the Aussie Bites series, and Jetty Rats, and has written an adult detective thriller The Build Up, The Debt series, and most recently, the young adult novel is Swerve, which was shortlisted for many awards amongst them the 2010 Prime Minister’s Award and the Golden Inky. He is also the author of Michael in the Stuff Happens series.