David Francis

David Francis established himself as an Australian-born novelist whose fiction often follows people moving between countries, loyalties, and private histories. Stray Dog Winter, his second novel, places an Australian artist in Moscow during the final years of the Soviet era, where friendship and political pressure narrow the distance between observer and participant. The Australian Literary Review named it a Book of the Year, and it received the American Library Association's Barbara Gittings Literature Award. Francis also wrote The Great Inland Sea and Wedding Bush Road, deepening his focus on displacement, family secrets, and landscapes across Australia and California. He trained as a lawyer, has taught creative writing at several Los Angeles institutions, and has served in leadership roles with PEN America. His background as a competitive horseman adds another strand to a career that crosses law, literature, and equestrian life. Stray Dog Winter remains central to his reputation for psychologically alert international fiction.