When Christine Courtenay began penning her own life story in lockdown last year, she found herself increasingly drawn into the story of her late husband and bestselling author Bryce Courtenay.
The manuscript that evolved, Bryce Courtenay: Storyteller (Penguin Viking, $39.99, November 1), is the memoir his readers have longed for, and is the first biographical work of one of Australia's most beloved authors.
Bryce Courtenay was a figure larger than life, and his extraordinary, adventurous, rags-to-riches life story reads like one of his epic fictions - and indeed characters, places, episodes and themes have made their way into his novels.
He was a man who never lost sight of his childhood dream to be a writer - something I relate to.
He was born in South Africa, an illegitimate son to Maud Jessamine Greer, known as Paddy, who gave him the name Courtenay, and spent his challenging childhood in a number of small African towns.
He was later schooled at an exclusive boarding school in Johannesburg, and worked the dangerous mines of Rhodesia in the fifties to pay his way to journalism school in London, where he met his first wife Benita Solomon.
Bryce followed Benita home to Sydney, where they married and raised three sons.
He embarked on a career in advertising, first as a copywriter, that spanned 34 years, and was creative director at McCann Erikson, J. Walter Thompson and George Patterson before following his childhood dream to become a novelist.
His award-winning campaigns included the original Milkybar Kid commercial (1961), Louie the Fly (1962) and the road safety campaign Stop, Revive, Survive (1990).
The Power of One was published in 1989, and quickly became an international bestseller. Bryce went on to write another 20 bestsellers, and can only be described as an Australian publishing phenomenon.
Bryce and Benita parted ways in 1999. Bryce engaged Christine Gee as his publicist in 1997. She became his partner in 2005, and they married in 2011.
Bryce died of stomach cancer on November 22, 2012, just 10 days after the publication of his last book, Jack of Diamonds.
Bryce Courtenay: Storyteller is a personal memoir and tribute, featuring untold stories, original insights, extracts from his personal letters and previously unpublished photographs - from the woman who knew and loved him dearly.
He was a born storyteller. The success of his extraordinary debut The Power of One made publishing history, and in the years that followed Bryce continued to entertain and inspire thousands of devoted readers around the world with his sweeping epics and larger-than-life characters who embody the strength and triumph of the human condition.
Christine Courtenay (nee Gee) was born in north-eastern Victoria in 1954 and grew up on a cattle property before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University. In 1975 she co-founded Australian Himalayan Expeditions, which offered trekking trips to the Himalayas, and became a world leader in adventure travel.
In 1989 she created her own marketing company and was engaged by several pioneering tourism projects. She also worked alongside acclaimed authors, world-renowned mountaineers and polar explorers.
Christine served as the Nepalese honorary consul-general in NSW from 1987, and as Nepal attache during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, and was a founding director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation. She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2013.
Christine was Bryce Courtenay's partner from 2005, and they married in 2011. She has a son called Nima, and continues to enjoy travelling, writing and walking in wild and beautiful places. She lives in Sydney.