Tim Winton reveals the story behind the nation's favourite Australian book

Key points

• Tim Winton wrote Cloudstreet while living overseas, not expecting its success. Published in 1991 during a severe recession, it was issued as a paperback and quickly became a hit.
• Thirty-five years on, the novel has been adapted for radio, theatre, opera and television and has never gone out of print. It placed first in Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books, with three other Winton novels also on the list.
• Winton says the book draws on the family stories he heard as a child and on his grandmother's life.