Boy Swallows Universe

Playscript

By Tim McGarry, Trent Dalton

2022

First Published

4.44

Average Rating

128

Number of Pages

3H54M

Audio Length

The bestselling novel, which has taken Australia and the world by storm, now comes alive onstage.Brisbane, 1985: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli Bell's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart and learn what it takes to be a good man, but life keeps throwing obstacles in his way - not the least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.Soon Eli is beset by chaos on all sides, and a run-in with the local crime king and his henchman launches the 13-year-old with the old soul on a journey to find out what kind of man he is going to be.Adapted by Tim McGarry from Trent Dalton's smash-hit novel, Boy Swallows Universe is an exhilarating story of magic and madness, of beauty and brutality, of joy and heartbreak, and of the power of love to triumph over the darkest of circumstances.

Avg Rating

4.44

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

62%

4 STARS

26%

3 STARS

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Authors

Trent Dalton writes for the award-winning The Weekend Australian Magazine. A former assistant editor of The Courier-Mail, he has won a Walkley, been a four-time winner of the national News Awards Feature Journalist of the Year Award, and was named Queensland Journalist of the Year at the 2011 Clarion Awards for excellence in Queensland media. His writing includes several short and feature-length film screenplays. His latest feature film screenplay, Home, is a love story inspired by his non-fiction collection Detours: Stories from the Street (2011), the culmination of three months immersed in Brisbane's homeless community, the proceeds of which went back to the 20 people featured within its pages. His journalism has twice been nominated for a United Nations of Australia Media Peace Award, and his debut novel Boy Swallows Universe was published in 2018. He was nominated for a 2010 AFI Best Short Fiction screenplay award for his latest film, Glenn Owen Dodds, starring David Wenham. The film won the prestigious International Prix Canal award at the world's largest short film festival, The Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France. Dalton's debut feature film screenplay, In the Silence, is currently in production. Trent also hosted the ABC Conversations show while Richard Fidler was on a Churchill Fellowship.