Remember Ronald Ryan introduces us to the last felon to be executed on Australian soil. Dickins portrays the man behind the legend as lovable, cheeky, wretched, despicable and, above all, courageous. After fourty years, his guilt in the shooting of a prison warder remains in doubt. A victim of his times, himself and political pressure, Ryan never stood a chance. Long freed by the hangman’s noose, he lives again thanks to the spirit, vitality and tenderness of Barry Dickins’ pen.
The human and political story of the last man to be executed in Australia, Remember Ronald Ryan won the 1995 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. This edition includes a new monologue spoken from Ryan’s perspective that ‘speaks to a new audience from his poor and unmarked grave’.
