''The Patron Saint of Eels'' (2005) is a novel by

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n author

Gregory Day Gregory Day is an Australian novelist, poet, and musician. Life Gregory Day is a novelist, poet, essayist and musician based in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. He is well known for his Mangowak novels, which document generationa ...

. It won the 2006

ALS Gold Medal The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (ALS Gold Medal) is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the ...

Plot summary

A moral tale, the novel tells the story of an Italian saint, Fra Ionio, who comes down from heaven to the small Australian town of Mangowak, to save some eels trapped in a ditch and to teach life lessons to some locals.

Reviews

Lisa Gorton Lisa Gorton (born 1972) is an Australian poet, novelist, literary editor and essayist. She is the author of three award-winning poetry collections: ''Press Release'', ''Hotel Hyperion'' '','' and ''Empirical''. Her novel ''The Life of Houses,'' ...

in ''The Age'' noted that the novel "is gentle in spirit, reverent and celebratory", and "is as much a tribute to the life of a small town as it is the hagiography of a saint.""The Patron saint of Eels" by Lisa Gorton, ''The Age'', 16 April 2005
/ref>

Awards and nominations

* 2006 shortlisted

Commonwealth Writers Prize Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best ...

South East Asia and South Pacific Region — Best First Book * 2006 winner

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patron Saint of Eels, The 2005 Australian novels ALS Gold Medal winning works