She's an unlikely winner of the Australian War Memorial's big prize for authors.
"I'm a most unlikely author of a book about war - I've been an anti-war activist for most of my life," said Christine Helliwell, who has scooped the memorial's Les Carlyon Literary Prize.
Professor Helliwell is an anthropologist at the ANU who, for the past 30 years or so, has studied the ways of the Dayak people in remote areas of Borneo, spending much of her time in the jungles of the Indonesian and Malaysian island.
During her research, she learned of a secret Australian special forces operation against the Japanese. She wrote its history and, unusually for military histories, not only from the perspective of the soldiers but of the tribespeople who helped them.
"I see the award as not just for the book but for the remarkable men who parachuted into Japan-occupied Borneo - a really brave thing to do," she said.
"But also for the Indigenous Dayak people of Borneo who took these operatives in, cared for them and, I genuinely think, without whom many of these young Australian soldiers wouldn't have come back."
She intends to give some of the $10,000 prize to a group (SAVE Rivers) which is working to save the threatened habitat where the people live and where the operations took place.
Prof Helliwell feels strongly the help of Indigenous people throughout the Pacific in the war against Japan has not been sufficiently recognised.
Semut: The untold story of a secret Australian operation in WWII Borneo is a page-turner.
As a professor at the ANU, she felt she wasn't used to writing for a mass audience so she sat in Dymock's and read popular histories to pick up the faster-moving style. The result is a book with academic rigour but popular appeal - and that's why the judges of the AWM prize chose it.
Read more: ANU's Christine Helliwell nominated for Prime Minister's Literary Awards
"Readers will sense and smell the jungle, discover what is was like to be there - the trips up-river and being in a war that spanned the globe, even touching remote communities in the jungles of Borneo," said Karl James, the AWM's head of military history.
The book is also on the shortlist for another big national prize, the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
The secret Special Services operation took place in March 1945 as the Japanese were being pushed back. The aim was to harry them but the terrain was so hostile Australian soldiers could only operate with local help. Rather than staying out of it, Indigenous people gave that help at great risk to their own lives.
Operation Semut was run by an Australian military department codenamed Services Reconnaissance (less formally known as Z Special Unit).
Prof Helliwell came to know a man called Jack Tredrea, who had been one of the soldiers who parachuted into the jungle. He and Prof Helliwell became great friends - they shared fish and chips the day after they first met. He was one of many sources for the book and their friendship led to the work of the special forces being marked by a memorial at the Australian War Memorial.
And to the Les Carlyon Literary Prize - and perhaps to the Prime Minister's Literary Award on December 13 when the winner is announced.
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