Discover the untold story of a real‑life “Tarzan” and his solo voyage across the Coral Sea.

In March 1958, twenty‑seven‑year‑old Michael Fomenko pushed his homemade canoe off the banks of the Daintree River in Far North Queensland and paddled into the open sea—alone, under‑provisioned, and determined to test the limits of body and spirit. Over the next year and a half, he fought storms, reefs, crocodile‑haunted rivers and crippling injuries as he made his way up the Cape York Peninsula, through the Torres Strait islands, and toward the wild coast of Dutch New Guinea.

Inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, The King of the Coral Sea weaves Michael’s legendary voyage with the remarkable life that led him there. Born in Moscow to a Georgian princess and a Cossack intellectual, Michael’s family fled Stalin’s Soviet Union on the trans‑Siberian line to Vladivostok and began again in Australia. As he grows up in Sydney and Queensland—training as an elite distance runner, rejecting the comforts of modern life and moving deeper into the bush—his path bends steadily toward the sea.

Told as a biographical historical novel, this book brings to life:

The raw beauty and danger of the Coral Sea, from the Daintree River and Quarantine Bay to Cape York, Torres Strait and Dutch New Guinea.

A powerful true story of wilderness survival, endurance and solitude, as Michael battles storms, shipwreck, injury and hunger in small, hand‑built boats. The long arc of a refugee family’s journey from Cold War Russia to Australia, and a son’s radical decision to renounce civilization in pursuit of a more
honest existence.

Deep literary threads from The Odyssey—xenia, exile, hostile seas and the search for home—echoed in Michael’s own odyssey along the edge of the Coral Sea.

For readers of Australian historical fiction, epic travel and sea adventure and “based on a true story” explorer biographies, The King of the Coral Sea offers a vivid, map‑tracked journey through rainforest, reef and open ocean—and an unforgettable portrait of an Australian legend who chose to live on his own terms.