IT’S estimated that one in every three Australian homes has a Bryce Courtenay novel on the bookshelf.

The South African-born author who would one day make Canberra his home is celebrated for 21 books that have inspired audiences across the world.

“The Power of One”, Courtenay’s epic debut novel about a young boy raised under apartheid, has sold more than eight million copies, been translated into 18 languages and turned into a major film starring Morgan Freeman.

Now, for the first time, the remarkable and little-known personal life of the author that inspired his beloved stories has been told in a memoir written by his wife, Christine – a book which also commemorates a decade since his passing.

“I think he knew one day a biography would be written about his life, but he never wanted to write one himself,” says Christine.

“He was warm, funny, generous and he had an insatiable appetite for learning about things.”

Christine still remembers the moment she met the man who would later become her husband.

“I had a marketing company and went to this writers’ group and I remember there was this not very tall man dressed in grey flannel pants and wearing a sports jacket and he was leaping around the room like a grasshopper on steroids and I thought: ‘I bet that’s Bryce’.

“He came over and said: ‘Oh, you must be Christine’ and I said: ‘Yes, Mr Courtenay, it’s a great honour to meet you,’ and he said: ‘Oh, just call me Bryce, just think of me as someone who sits down every year and writes a book’.”

That same memory would inspire what would one day become “Bryce Courtenay: Storyteller”, a memoir Chrsitine has poured two years of research into.

“It started with an essay I wrote about how Bryce and I first met. I sent it to a girlfriend and she said: ‘This is really good, why don’t you keep going?’,” says Christine.

“And I said: ‘Well, keep going with what?’ and it was one of those strange things, I don’t know if you’d call it serendipity, but in June 2020 I was clearing out some stuff in my garage and I found a box of letters.

“I began to read them and I burst into tears. They were letters written by Bryce, I think 141 of them.

“They were mostly to and from his mother and family and some of them were written when he was a very small child, growing up in and out of institutions living in South Africa.”

Through Bryce’s own voice found in his letters, Christine discovered stories that read remarkably like one of his epic novels: a tough childhood, risking his life down the mines before heading to London to study journalism, finding love and docking in Australia with only a suitcase, all while holding on to the dream of becoming a writer.

“If anyone was going to write a memoir of Bryce’s life, after that there was something telling me I should try,” she says.

“I remember deciding this was going to be the heart of the book.”

Christine would go on to study dozens of interviews, pull records from overseas and track down family members and friends from whom she heard “many wonderful stories”.

“Bryce started to tell me a lot about his early life, can you believe it, in the very last days of his life. He seemed to have this desire to talk about it and I had a book and wrote it all down,” says Christine.

“With all of that I had almost too much material. It was like a race to get it all done, I fell across the finish line on my stomach to get it done in time for Christmas.

“Bryce used to say his books belong with the socks and chocolate under the Christmas tree. He was always very proud of them being seen that way.”

While Christine says writing about Bryce’s early years was no easy feat, telling the story of their time together at their home in Reid was one she found much more trouble-free.

“Bryce loved Canberra for its natural beauty. He was always walking up Mount Ainslie with the dog,” she says.

“He loved Canberra’s intellectual life, cultural life, the fresh air and he loved his rugby and the Brumbies embraced him. Canberra was so welcoming.”

While Christine believes more biographies will be written about her husband, she says for now, this is one that Bryce would have loved.

“I think he would have thought it was gracious and dignified, but I also think he would have liked that it isn’t sugar coated,” she says.

“Perhaps a more academic work will come along one day, but this one is a love story, one written to honour Bryce.”

“Bryce Courtenay: Storyteller” available from November 1.