When 28-year-old Afghan-Aboriginal woman Magnolia Din-Olden reluctantly accepts a job driving seven Muslim boys from her hometown of Alice Springs to Marree in South Australia, little does she know what lies ahead.
Including the surprise passenger who’ll be riding shotgun with her through the desert -- her long lost teenage love. Magnolia recoils, bitter with anger and disbelief at seeing Dominique.
As the pair embark on the almost 3000-kilometre road trip across an unforgiving landscape, under a dark moon, with seven boys, the emotional weight of their reunion is soon matched by the chilling presence of something primeval that seems to be following them, drawn to what’s hidden in the van.
Their path is littered with haunting incidents, primordial forces, and terrifying encounters that defy explanation.
The Woman in the Well is acclaimed author Dmetri Kakmi’s third novel; a dark and powerful literary work that explores how the past shadows the present — through memory, myth, and the silence we inherit.
A sorrowful reckoning—not only with the ghosts of the past, but with oneself.
Indigenous Themes, LGBTQIA+ Themes
Dark, Folklore, Myth, Australian Outback, Fantasy
About The Author
Dmetri Kakmi was born to Greek parents in Turkey. He is the author of The Dictionary of a Gadfly (under the pseudonym of The Sozzled Scribbler), The Door and Other Uncanny Tales, Mother Land and When We Were Young (as editor).
Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in 2008, and is published in England and Turkey. His short story ‘The Boy by the Gate’ was first published in England in The New Gothic and reprinted in Australia in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2013. ‘Haunting Matilda’ was published in the horror anthology Cthulhu: Deep Down Under and shortlisted for Best Fantasy Novella in the Aurealis Awards, 2015.
His essays and short stories appear in various Australian and overseas anthologies.
Dmetri has more than 30 years’ experience in various aspects of publishing, including editing, lecturing, teaching and mentoring. For 15 years, he worked as a senior editor at Penguin Books. As well, he was secretary and fiction/non-fiction co-editor of the online literary journal Kalliope X. Dmetri’s monthly column ‘101 Horror Movie Nights’ appears in the US based Drunken Odyssey literary website. Dmetri Kakmi is a highly respected writer in the literary and speculative fiction fields.
His gothic novel, The Woman in the Well, has been described by one editor as ‘an astonishing mix of literary horror and folklore.’ Dmetri is currently working on the psychological crime novel The Perfect Room.
He lives in Melbourne.
