| Traitor | |
| Author: | Stephen Daisley |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | novel |
| Publisher: | Text Publishing, Australia |
| Release Date: | 2010 |
| English Release Date: | 2 August 2010 |
| Media Type: | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages: | 239 |
| Isbn: | 9781921656491 |
| Followed By: | Coming Rain |
Traitor is a 2007 novel written by New Zealand author Stephen Daisley. It won the Prime Minister's Literary Award in Australia in 2011 for Best Fiction.[1]
Young New Zealand soldier David Monroe is fighting at Gallipoli in World War I when he meets a Turkish doctor, Mohammad. As they tend to a wounded soldier a bomb bursts nearby and both are sent to an army hospital on the island of Lemnos. The novel explores the growing friendship between the two men, and two cultures, as they recover from their wounds.
James Bradley in The Australian noted: "At its best, Daisley's prose possesses a shimmering, allusive beauty reminiscent of John McGahern. Sequences such as the stunning description of the ageing David's journey out into a rainy morning to supervise the lambing lend the novel an almost sacred quality."[2]