Christine Balint’s fourth novel, A Single Witness, is due for release in May 2026. It brings to light a historical trial from the Venetian archives. A Single Witness tells the story of Anna Maria Bonon, a 13-year-old illiterate girl from a mountain village who took her father to trial for sex abuse in Venice in 1757. She won her case. It is available for pre-order from Spinifex Press here

‘The evocative story of a vulnerable girl who refused to be silenced. Intimate, compelling, and atmospheric.’

– Carrie Tiffany, winner of the Stella Prize for 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, prize-winning author of the Hirsch series and many other novels.