A Single Witness

A$34.95

It is 1756. In the mountain village of Piovene, outside Venice, 13-year-old Anna Maria Bonon lives a spartan life with her grandmother and father. In the daytime, she cards wool at the local mill. At home, she raises silkworms. She is afraid of her violent father, Giacomo, who scrambles for work and drinks his sorrows away at the osteria. When Giacomo is arrested for a public brawl, Anna Maria and her grandmother walk miles to the court in Vicenza.

But instead of trying to free him, Anna Maria accuses her father of unspeakable crimes that he committed against her. The Council of Ten from Venice arrive to investigate. She is the single witness.

Challenged by her grandmother and the local priest to say she lied, Anna Maria is torn between loyalty to her elders and telling the truth.

Set against the evocative background of the fecund Veneto region, A Single Witness provides an insight into 18th century village life in Italy where being a young girl with an abusive father is a tough reality that would have crushed many others.

Drawing closely on original trial documents from Venetian archives, prize-winning novelist Christine Balint brings to light the true story of Anna Maria Bonon and her brave pursuit of justice at a time when a man’s authority over his family was unquestioned.

MAY 2026 | ISBN 9781922964342 | Paperback | 152 mm x 228mm | 320 pages

Christine Balint

It is 1756. In the mountain village of Piovene, outside Venice, 13-year-old Anna Maria Bonon lives a spartan life with her grandmother and father. In the daytime, she cards wool at the local mill. At home, she raises silkworms. She is afraid of her violent father, Giacomo, who scrambles for work and drinks his sorrows away at the osteria. When Giacomo is arrested for a public brawl, Anna Maria and her grandmother walk miles to the court in Vicenza.

But instead of trying to free him, Anna Maria accuses her father of unspeakable crimes that he committed against her. The Council of Ten from Venice arrive to investigate. She is the single witness.

Challenged by her grandmother and the local priest to say she lied, Anna Maria is torn between loyalty to her elders and telling the truth.

Set against the evocative background of the fecund Veneto region, A Single Witness provides an insight into 18th century village life in Italy where being a young girl with an abusive father is a tough reality that would have crushed many others.

Drawing closely on original trial documents from Venetian archives, prize-winning novelist Christine Balint brings to light the true story of Anna Maria Bonon and her brave pursuit of justice at a time when a man’s authority over his family was unquestioned.

MAY 2026 | ISBN 9781922964342 | Paperback | 152 mm x 228mm | 320 pages

The Rust Red Land

A$36.95

The Leaves

A$26.95

Join us at Readings Hawthorn on 1 May 2026 for ***A Single Witness*** book launch. The book will be launched by Toni Jordan. Read more here.

For those on the Mornington Peninsula, don’t go past the launch of ***A Single Witness*** at Stories by the Sea Bookshop on 8 May 2026. Vikki Petraitis will be doing the launching honours. Read more here.

Take a Look Inside the Book

EBOOK WILL BE AVAILABLE ON PUBLICATION DATE

Endorsements

The evocative story of a vulnerable girl who refused to be silenced. Intimate, compelling, and atmospheric.
— Carrie Tiffany, Stella-Prize winning author of Mateship with Birds

A Single Witness is a beautifully crafted yet unflinching probe into an actual crime and its devastating aftermath in 1750s rural Italy. Told deftly and evocatively by a novelist of great skill, it is a deeply satisfying work of literary art, full of intense, almost hallucinatory detail as it goes straight to the heart of a village’s passions and deceits, and the indomitable spirit of the young woman whose life is torn apart.
— Garry Disher, bestselling author and three-time Ned Kelly Award winner