The Submerged Cathedral

'Set me as a seal on your heart, for love is stronger than death.'

Spanning many years, travelling across Australia's vast continent and through some of Europe's great cities, The Submerged Cathedral is a beguiling, heartbreaking story of paradise and the fall; of faith, sacrifice and atonement; and of sisterly love and rivalry. Most of all, however, it is about an enduring and sacred love - a love stronger than death - and the journeys undertaken in its name.

The Submerged Cathedral was shortlisted for the 2005 Miles Franklin Award and the 2005 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for South-East Asia/South Pacific.
"This is a book about the cultivation and worship of a relationship, written in such limpid and beautiful prose that Charlotte Wood herself should be celebrated."

- The Sunday Age


​
"Fine writing and a powerful story about love and sacrifice."

​- Marie Claire
"Assured, bold and elegant ... The Submerged Cathedral will be celebrated for its capacity to make us weep in a way only the best writing can."

​- The Sydney Morning Herald



"A tender, intelligent and beautiful novel ... Wood's writing is made of the same stuff as Debussy's music."
​
- The Bulletin
"A love story shot through with religious overtones that is as engrossing as it is moving … elliptical, clean and entirely convincing."

​- The Age

​

"A finely wrought novel … convincing, and profoundly moving."
​
- Miles Franklin Award judges 

More by Charlotte Wood