The Unknown Industrial Prisoner (1971) is a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Australian author David Ireland.

[1] In 1978 a film version was planned, to be produced by Richard Mason and directed by Arch Nicholson, with Ken Cameron also working on it.

[2][3] Helen Brown in The Canberra Times noted that the novel is "a big, good book with an important and timely theme and it should assure David Ireland a place in the front ranks of contemporary Australian writers.

Yet my chewing was dogged and dutiful rather than enjoyable and the pages had a persistent tendency to stick in my throat...The writing is excellent, sliding naturally from tough, idiomatic Australian to occasional passages of great power and beauty.

It is my guess David Ireland has put the true flavour of Australian English on the literary map.