James Cowan

James Cowan (9 April 1942 – 6 October 2018) was an Australian author. He was the author of a number of internationally acclaimed books, including A Troubadour's Testament and Letters from A Wild State. In 1998 he was awarded the prestigious Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal for his novel, A Mapmaker's Dream. His work has been translated into seventeen languages.

Biography Born in Melbourne, Australia, Cowan completed his studies in Sydney. His first published works were Nine Poems (Mauritius, 1964) and A Rambling Man (Sydney, 1966). In the 1960s he travelled and worked in Mauritius, Vancouver, New York, Paris and London. For some years he lived in Marrakesh, and in Libya, studying the Berber and Tuareg peoples. Returning to Australia in 1973, he decided to view his homeland as a foreign country. He made journeys throughout the continent, sometimes on horseback, exploring early European culture and its imprint on the land. This led to a succession of books, The Mountain Men, The River People, and Starlight's Trail.

In the 1990s, James spent two years living in Balgo Hills, a remote Aboriginal settlement in the Tanami Desert. From there he relocated to Cortona in Italy where he lived for three years. More recently he has been living in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He died in Bangalow, New South Wales, on 6 October 2018 aged 76.