The discovery of decades-old human bones in the Tasmanian wilderness reveals tragic connections 
between the disparate lives of post-war migrants and local workers in a haunting new novel from the 
author of Fortune.
‘The epigraph – the past lies before us – represents a key theme of the novel. The idea that we construct the past as we 
move forwards in time; the fact that the past is not a steady, rigidly defined thing, but rather an unreliable collection 
of stories that are perpetually liable to collapse.’ - Lenny Bartulin
As the son of migrants, Lenny Bartulin has long wanted to tackle the subject of post war immigration in Tasmania. 
The Unearthed is a novel that especially tries to capture a moment in time when post war European migrants arrived 
in Australia and were dispersed to remote places all over the country – in this case, the west coast of Tasmania.
When human bones are discovered in the wild by hikers, along with a shovel nearby, Antonia Kovacs of the Forensic 
Science Service Tasmania offers to collect them. It will give her the chance to head home to Queenstown to visit her 
father, a retired police inspector.
In Hobart, Tom Pilar receives a letter from Schlieffer, Petersen & Rowe, notifying him as sole benefactor of Slavko 
Cicak’s will. Tom barely remembers meeting him as a child, but recalls his father telling him a story of looking for 
gold together, and that Slavko had some kind of map.
The Unearthed is a haunting novel about the past and its quiet but tenacious grip on the present. It reveals the tragic 
connections between the disparate lives of post-war migrants and local workers. And while no-one is ‘wrong’ in their 
version of events, our own individual memories can often be unreliable and deceiving.
The 
Unearthed
by Lenny 
Bartulin
Publication date: August 1, 2023
Praise for Lenny Bartulin:
'Superbly written and propelled by an unsettling Gothic tension.

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