Displaced Person

Before virtual worlds challenged reality and before parallel dimensions swallowed small towns, there was the greyworld of Displaced Person…

Graeme Drury is fading – literally. At first, it’s subtle: a waitress forgets his order, a tram conductor overlooks his ticket. But soon, his world turns grey, silent, and paper-thin. His parents don’t see him. His girlfriend vanishes into shadow. Graeme is vanishing, too. Slipping into a chilling, liminal space where nothing feels real, and no one remembers he ever existed.

A haunting meditation on identity, alienation, and the fragile boundaries of reality, Displaced Person stands as a masterwork of science fiction. First published in 1979, this award-winning novel was ahead of its time – now eerily resonant in our age of digital detachment and fractured realities. With haunting clarity, Lee Harding—an influential voice in Australian cosmic horror—evoked the creeping dread of adolescence and the unbearable weight of being unseen. His work lingers like a shadow at the edge of reality, capturing the terror of dislocation and the unknown.

Winner of the Alan Marshall Award and the Australian Children’s Book of the Year, Displaced Person returns in this digital reissue to unsettle, provoke, and illuminate a new generation of readers.

‘A tensely told horror tale... also a penetrating and convincing study of emotional alienation’

– Sydney Morning Herald

‘Original and haunting. Harding’s supernatural thriller exemplifies the lyric: “icy fingers up and down my spine”.’

 – Publishers Weekly

‘Readers will undoubtedly be enthralled by this frightening story’

– The New York Times Book Review