The Bookwallah Six writers, a nomadic library, 2000km by .

Chandrahas Choudhury Benjamin Law Kirsty Murray Sudeep Sen Annie Zaidi

Mumbai October 31–November 4 Goa November 5–7 Bangalore November 8–13 November 14–16 Pondicherry November 17–21 1 2 Contents.

Map 2 Overview 3 .... The writers 4 — Chandrahas Choudhury 4 — Michelle de Kretser 4 — Benjamin Law 5 — Kirsty Murray 6 — Sudeep Sen 6 — Annie Zaidi 7 .... The Bookwallah Nomadic Library 8 — The cases 8 — The books 8 — ­ The designers 9 .... 12 Goa 14 Bangalore 16 Chennai 18 Pondicherry 20 .... The library catalogue 22 .... The bookwallahs 46 The supporters 47 The publishers 48

1 Map.

MUMBAI

goa

bangalore chennai

pondicherry

2 Overview.

The Bookwallah takes six writers and an ingenious lian books. Bound in kangaroo , the cases travelling library across south by train. In- house fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children’s dian writers Chandrahas Choudhury, Annie Zaidi books. They’re part library, part art installation; and Sudeep Sen join Australian writers Michelle De visitors can browse, sit and read, or take part in Kretser, Benjamin Law and Kirsty Murray on a jour- intimate library events. If you see a book you like, ney through the cities and towns of modern India. you can borrow it from your local library: copies of They will share books and ideas, meet readers, and the books will be donated to a local library in each seek out stories, conversations and connections destination along the way. along the way. As well as public events, the Bookwallah tour In Mumbai you’ll find us at the Literature Live! includes private encounters with local writers, Mumbai LitFest, before we head to Goa for a Book- artists and thinkers in each city, designed to illu- wallah mini-festival at the Literati Bookshop. Next minate some of the fascinating ideas and pressing stop is Bangalore, where we’re guests of the Ban- questions of India today. The writers will dine with galore Literature Festival for their pre-festival pro- writers and artists in their homes, walk the cities gram; we’re also teaming up with 1Shanthiroad arts on foot, and finish their journey with a chance to studio gallery to look at travel in the modern world. reflect at a writers’ retreat. Then the train heads east to Chennai for another The Bookwallah is a hybrid between a mobile Bookwallah mini-festival at Apparao Galleries and writers festival, a roving arts residency and a trav- the Hotel Taj Connemara before finishing up with a elling art installation. It’s a project from the Asialink finale at Aurodhan Gallery in Pondicherry. Writing Program at the University of , The writers are accompanied by unique luggage: and part of the OzFest 2012 program. a portable, pop-up library. Emerging Australian designer Georgia Hutchison and veteran Indian de- Follow the journey across India at signer Soumitri Varadarajan have created a series www.thebookwallah.com, on twitter at of exquisite custom-made suitcases that open and @theBookwallah, and on facebook at transform into bookcases, filled with new Austra- www.facebook.com/TheBookwallah

3 The writers. Arzee the Dwarf Michelle de Kretser Chandrahas Choudhury HarperCollins

Arzee the dwarf’s dream has come true. He has been crowned as head projectionist at the Noor, the Bom- bay cinema where he has been working since his Chandrahas Choudhury teens. Arzee thinks that the worst of his troubles are behind him, and that he can marry and settle down now. But not for the first time, Arzee has it all wrong! Arzee the Dwarf follows Arzee through day and night, slow time and fast time, agitation and rev- erie, beautifully setting off the inner world of Ar- zee’s jagged ruminations against the beating and pulsing of the great city around him. The narration Michelle de Kretser was born in and lives vividly brings to life not just the protagonist, but in Australia. She was educated in Colombo, Mel- also a host of characters to whom Arzee turns in his bourne and Paris. Michelle has worked as a tutor in hour of need. Can Arzee find a place for himself in English Literature at the , “the world of the fives and the sixes”? This bitter- as a book reviewer and as an editor. Her prize-win- sweet comedy, shuffling between hope and dread, ning fiction, which shows a deep understanding of between the yearnings of body and soul, is a book psychology, is concerned with modernity and the Chandrahas Choudhury is a novelist and literary about the strange beauty of human dreaming. impact of political and social upheaval on individ- critic based in Delhi. He is the author of the novel ual lives. Admirers of her novels include A S Byatt, Arzee the Dwarf. The book was shortlisted for the Anita Desai, Hilary Mantel and Neel Mukherjee. Commonwealth First Book Award and appears this Her novels, The Rose Grower (1999) and The Ham- year in German and Spanish translations under the ilton Case (2003), The Lost Dog (2007), and Ques- title The Little King of Bombay. Choudhury’s book tions of Travel (2012) have been published across reviews appear in , the Wash- the world and translated into several languages. ington Post and . He is also The Hamilton Case won the Commonwealth Writ- the Fiction & Poetry editor of the Indian magazine ers’ Prize for South-East Asia and the Pacific, the of politics and the arts The Caravan (http://www. Encore Award and the Tasmania Pacific Prize for caravanmagazine.in/). He writes a weekly column Australian and New Zealand fiction.The Lost Dog on Indian politics and society for the website won the NSW Premier’s Book of the Year, the Chris- Bloomberg View, and is also the editor of a short tina Stead Prize for Fiction, the ALS Gold Medal, introduction to Indian literature, India: A Travel- was shortlisted for numerous others, and long-list- ler’s Literary Companion. His literary weblog, The ed for the 2008 Man-Booker Prize. Middle Stage (http://middlestage.blogspot.com), is seven years old and is widely read in India. In `Her characters feel alive, and she can create a 2010 he was a Visiting Fellow at the International sweeping narrative which encompasses years, and Writing Program at the University of Iowa. still retain the sharp, almost hallucinatory de- (middlestage.blogspot.com) tail.’ — Hilary Mantel

4 Benjamin Law Gaysia Michelle de Kretser Benjamin Law Allen & Unwin Black Inc.

A mesmerising literary novel, Questions of Travel Benjamin Law considers himself pretty lucky to live charts two very different lives. Laura travels the in Australia: he can hold his boyfriend’s hand in world before returning to , where she works public and lobby his politicians to recognise same- for a publisher of travel guides. Ravi dreams of be- sex marriage. But as the child of migrants, he’s also ing a tourist until he is driven from Sri Lanka by curious about how different life might have been devastating events. had he grown up in Asia. So he sets off to meet his Around these two superbly drawn characters, a fellow Gaysians. double narrative assembles an enthralling array of Law takes his investigative duties seriously, going people, places and stories—from Theo, whose life nude where required in Balinese sex resorts, sitting plays out in the long shadow of the past, to Hana, an backstage for hours with Thai ladyboy beauty con- Ethiopian woman determined to reinvent herself Benjamin Law is a Brisbane-based freelance writer testants and trying Indian yoga classes designed to in Australia. and journalist, who was once described by conser- cure his homosexuality. The characters he meets— Award-winning author Michelle de Kretser illu- vative Australian columnist Andrew Bolt as “a gay from Tokyo’s celebrity drag queens to HIV-positive minates travel, work and modern dreams in this with comprehension issues”. Burmese sex workers, from Malaysian ex-gay Chris- brilliant evocation of the way we live now. Won- His essays have been anthologised in The Best tian fundamentalists to Chinese gays and lesbians derfully written, Questions of Travel is an extraordi- Australian Essays, and he is a frequent contributor who marry each other to please their parents—all nary work of imagination—a transformative, very to frankie, Good Weekend, The Monthly and Qweek- teach him something new about being queer in Asia. funny and intensely moving novel. end. He has been published in over 50 newspapers, At once entertaining and moving, Gaysia is a magazines, websites and journals in Australia and wild ride­­—a fascinating quest by a leading Aus- Praise for The Lost Dog worldwide. tralian writer. ‘This is the best novel I have read in a long time.’ His debut book (2010) was a —AS Byatt black comedy memoir about growing up Asian “A terrific read ... gonzo anthropology and great and gay in regional in the 1980s and storytelling.”—John Safran ‘A beautiful piece of writing—place your bets now for 1990s. It was shortlisted for Book of the Year at the the Booker.’—Kate Saunders, Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) and the “...one of the most suprising and entertaining voices screen rights have been bought by Matchbox Pic- in Australian nonfiction writing.” tures. A French version will be published in 2012. — His second book Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East (2012) looks at queer cultures and communi- “Gaysia is like a Louis Theroux documentary in book ties in Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, Myan- form”—Bookseller+Publish mar (Burma), and India. Benjamin also holds a PhD in writing and cultur- al studies from the Queensland University of Tech- nology. He a regular guest on radio, a semi-regular guest on television and has a typing speed of over 80 words per minute, despite only typing with only two fingers. (www.benjamin-law.com)

5 Kirsty Murray die’s Fire, which is the first title in her epic series of Sudeep Sen Australian historical fiction,Children of the Wind. Her most recent novel, The Lilliputians (released in the UK and Australia as India Dark), is based on the true story of a theatrical troupe of Australian chil- dren that toured India in 1910. Murray conducted extensive research in India and Southeast Asia to write the novel, which won a NSW Premier’s History Prize in 2011. Murray is married to puppeteer Ken Harper. They have a large blended family that includes six adult children, two grandchildren and numerous Kirsty Murray was born into a large artistic family godchildren. Murray’s eldest daughter, Ruby J Sudeep Sen is widely recognised as a major new gen- in Melbourne in 1960. After many years of working Murray, is also a novelist. (www.kirstymurray.com/) eration voice in world literature and ‘one of the finest in the arts and living in Canada, France and Wales, younger English-language poets in the international she returned to Australia to study Professional The Lilliputians literary scene’ (BBC Radio). He is ‘fascinated not just by Writing and Editing at the Royal Melbourne Insti- Kirsty Murray language but the possibilities of language’ (Scotland on tute of Technology. Since 1998, her published work Young Zubaan Sunday). He read English Literature at the University has included over fifteen titles for children and of Delhi and as an Inlaks Scholar received an MS from young adults plus numerous essays and articles. MADRAS 1910: Poesy and Tilly are caught in a scan- the Journalism School at Columbia University (New Murray is passionate about writing for younger dal that will change their lives forever. Singing and York). His awards, fellowships & residencies include: audiences and encouraging their love of reading, dancing across a hundred stages as members of a Hawthornden Fellowship (UK), Pushcart Prize nomi- writing and history. She believes the literature that troupe of Australian child performers, called The nation (USA), BreadLoaf (USA), Pleiades (Macedonia), we are exposed to as children and young adults Lilliputians, they travel by steam train into the NLPVF Dutch Foundation for Literature (Amsterdam), critically influences our understanding of the sig- heart of India. But as one disaster follows another, Ledig House (New York), Sanskriti (), Wolfs- nificance of our culture. Her work often explores money runs short and tempers fray. What must the berg UBS Pro Helvetia (Switzerland), Tyrone Guthrie aspects of Australian history, culture and identity. girls do to protect themselves and how many lives Centre (Ireland), and Shanghai Writers Programme From convict times to contemporary circuses, from will be ruined if they try to break free? (China). He was international writer-in-residence at India to Ireland, from the complex past into possi- Based on a real historical incident, award-win- the Scottish Poetry Library (Edinburgh) and visiting ble futures, Murray’s fiction blends rich elements ning writer Kirsty Murray tells a tale of intrigue and scholar at Harvard University. and thought-provoking themes. skullduggery, of friendships made and betrayed, Sen’s critically-acclaimed books include The Murray’s novels have won and been short-listed set against the heat and dust of a lost Empire. The Lunar Visitations, New York Times, Dali’s Twisted for numerous awards including the WA Premier’s Lilliputians is not only a gripping adventure story, Hands, Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems, Award and the NSW Premier’s History and NSW Pre- but a vividly imagined historical novel, that will Distracted Geographies, Prayer Flag, Rain, Aria (A K mier’s Literature Awards. She has been an Asialink enthrall young readers and take them on an unfor- Ramanujan Translation Award), Ladakh and Letters Literature Resident in South India, a Creative Fel- gettable journey back in time... of Glass. Blue Nude: New & Selected Poems | Transla- low of the State Library of and is currently The Liliputians was the winner of several Austra- tions 1979-2014 (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry an Ambassador for the Victorian Premier’s Reading lian awards including the 2011 NSW Premier’s His- Prize) is forthcoming. He has also edited several im- Challenge. She is an experienced public presenter tory Awards, Young People’s History Prize and was portant anthologies, including The HarperCollins and has appeared as a guest speaker at writers fes- awarded Notable Book, 2011 Children’s Book Coun- Book of English Poetry, Poetry Foundation Indian tivals and conferences across Australia as well as cil of Australia Book of the Year­—Older Readers. Poetry Portfolio, Poetry Review Centrefold of Indian in the United Kingdom, Bali, India, Singapore and “This captivating historical story will take you Poems, The Literary Review Indian Poetry, World Hong Kong. Murray has also taught creative writing back to a different era and completely immerse you Literature Today Writing from Modern India, The in many schools and institutions. in the travels and troubles that happen on tour. Yellow Nib Contemporary English Poetry by Indians, Kirsty Murray’s novels include Market Blues, Kirsty Murray has done a great job bringing the Midnight’s Grandchildren: Post-Independence En- 6 Zarconi’s Magic Flying Fish, Vulture’s Gate, and Bri- childrens’ tale to life!”—Hannah Mariska glish Poetry from India, Wasafiri New Writing from

India, South Asia & the Diaspora, and, Lines Review Annie Zaidi ues to freelance for a range of magazines and news- Twelve Modern Young Indian Poets. papers including Caravan, Open, Mid-Day, Frontline His poems, translated into twenty-five languag- (news magazine published by group), es, have featured in international anthologies by Elle, Forbes Life, and Tehelka, aside from her week- Penguin, HarperCollins, Bloomsbury, Routledge, ly column for the DNA (Daily News and Analysis). Norton, Knopf, Everyman, Random House, Mac- Her latest book is Love Stories # 1–14, a collection millan, and Granta. His words have appeared in the of short stories forthcoming from HarperCollins. Times Literary Supplement, , Guardian, (knownturf.blogspot.in) Observer, Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, Herald, London Magazine, Poetry Review, Literary Love Stories # 1 to 14 Review, Harvard Review, Hindu, Hindustan Times, Annie Zaidi Times of India, Indian Express, Outlook, India To- Harper Collins India day, and broadcast on BBC, PBS, CNN, IBN, NDTV, AIR and Doordarshan. Sen’s newer work appears in Annie Zaidi writes poetry, essays, fiction of varying ‘Curious villagers stopped to stare at this shameless New Writing 15 (Granta), Language for a New Cen- lengths, and scripts for the stage and the screen. man and woman whose fingers were wound in each tury (Norton), Leela: An Erotic Play of Verse and She writes in both English and Hindi. others’ hair, and whose lips were stretched with im- Art (Collins), Indian Love Poems (Knopf/Random Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other possible smiles, and faces were glowing like warm House/Everyman), Out of Bounds (Bloodaxe), and True Tales was a first collection of essays drawing red wax in the late afternoon. But after a minute or Initiate: Oxford New Writing (Blackwell). He is the upon reportage, travel and personal history. It two, they too walked away, because looking at the editorial director of Aark Arts and the editor of At- was short-listed for the Vodafone Crossword Book two any longer became unbearable.’ las. (www.atlasaarkarts.net) (www.sudeepsen.net) Awards (Non-fiction, 2011) and was translated into A woman who won’t let the shadow of death dis- Italian as ‘I Miei Luoghi’. rupt her love life, another who falls irrevocably in The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry The Bad Boy’s Guide to the Good Indian Girl, a se- love with a dead police officer, a devoted wife who Sudeep Sen (ed) ries of interlinked fictional narratives about young steps out twice a week for Narcotics Anonymous HarperCollins women’s lives in the subcontinent, has been written meetings, friends who should have been lovers, the in collaboration with Smriti Ravindra. Other sto- woman who offers all her pent-up love to a railway ‘Among the 60 essential English-language works of ries and essays have appeared in anthologies like announcer’s voice … Annie Zaidi’s stories are at Modern Indian Literature. An important literary Mumbai Noir; Women Changing India; Journeys once warm and distant, violent and gentle—and, marker’—World Literature Today Through Rajasthan; 21 Under 40; India Shining, above all, untroubled by cynicism. This is a look at The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry is a ma- India Changing; and literary journals including The love, straight in the eye, to understand the alluring jor landmark international book that reflects the Little Magazine, Pratilipi, Out of Print and Desilit. nature of the beast. vibrant contemporary poetry culture of India and She won the Prakriti prize for poetry in 2011. the broader Indian diaspora—the United States and Crush, a series of illustrated poems, was made in Canada, The United Kingdom and Europe, Africa collaboration with artist Gynelle Alves. The Almost and Asia, Australia and the Pacific. The featured Drizzles of May was an early collection of poems poets are born post 1950, after India became a repub- put together with Prateebha Tuladhar and Smriti lic, and showcase the best English poetry by Indians Jaiswal/Ravindra. over the last sixty years. A unique feature of this dis- Her first Hindi playJaal opened at Prithvi Theatre cerning anthology is that over 90 per cent of the po- in 2012 as part of the Writers Bloc 3, a playwright-fo- ems are new and unpublished in individual author cused theatre festival in Mumbai. Her first English volumes. Expertly edited by Sudeep Sen, this signif- play Name, Place, Animal, Thing was short-listed for icant book is a must-have for literature and poetry The Hindu Metroplus Playwright Award in 2009. A lovers—an essential compendium for academics, radio play Jam was short-listed for the BBC’s Inter- students, librarians and interested lay readers who national Playwriting Competition, 2011. want to sample the vibrant cultural and intellectual She worked as a journalist for over a decade, re- milieu of India, at home and in the world. porting from both urban and rural areas, and contin- 7 The books. The cases.

The library contains all of our authors’ books, plus another 160 titles across fiction, non-fiction, po- As the Bookwallah writers make their way across etry, children's books and graphic novels. There India by train, they’re accompanied by unique lug- are brand new novels like Chloe Hooper's The gage: a portable, pop-up library. Emerging Austra- Engagement or Michelle de Kretser's Questions of Browse the library catalogue on page 22 lian designer Georgia Hutchison and veteran Indian Travel; best-sellers like The Slap or A Fraction of the designer Soumitri Varadarajan have created a series Whole; we have a selection of non-fiction looking of exquisite custom-made suitcases that open and at Australia's Aboriginal culture and the history of transform into seats and bookcases, filled with hun- land, conflict and reconciliation; there are a dozen dreds of new Australian books. They’re part library, much-loved and best-selling volumes of poetry, in- part art installation; readers can browse, sit and cluding the Best Australian Poems 2011; reprints of read, or take part in intimate library events. classic Australian works from the Text Classics se- You’ll find the cases at the NCPA for the Literature ries; cutting-edge reportage and non-fiction from Live! Festival in Mumbai, Literati Bookstore in Goa, the likes of Anna Krien and Robert Dessaix looking The Bookwallah Nomadic Library the Bangalore International Centre for the Banga- at everything from Australia's relationships with lore Literature Festival pre-event program, various the animal kingdom to queer culture in Australia venues in Chennai, and at the Aurodhan Gallery in and world-wide; and a beautiful selection of books Pondicherry. You may also stumble across them on for teenagers, children and adventurous adults. trains, lending books to travellers to read on their The books have been curated by the travelling journey, or in unexpected public places—keep an Australian authors to provide a mobile literary con- eye out. text for their work. They chose books that are per- The cases are built from a range of beautiful sonally inspirational to them, or that they thought Australian materials including kangaroo leather were important to . All in all coverings and hardwood detailing. They are built the books provide a snapshot of Australia's vibrant to withstand the rigours of nearly a month’s travel- contemporary writing and publishing cultures. ling across India by train, with replaceable parts to You are invited to come down to our events and ensure a long life. They’re also built from sustain- browse the library, and if you see something you able sources—plantation timber, wild-harvested like, check our website (www.thebookwallah.com) kangaroo leather, and vegetable dyes. for links to buy the books online, or head down to In their design the cases reference book-binding your local library. Books from the library will be processes and materials such as oilskins and can- donated to universities and libraries along the way, vases. These materials are hard-wearing, but will where you'll be able to borrow and read at your lei- also scuff and age as books do, giving each case its sure. Check our website for the list of libraries. own personality. At the conclusion of the voyage the cases will be restocked with Indian books and return to tour Australia, showcasing the best of Indian writing to 8 audiences down under. The designers.

Georgia Hutchison was born on the side of a moun- tain in 1986. She is a multidisciplinary designer based in Melbourne, Australia. Since graduating from a Bachelor of Design (Industrial Design) at RMIT with 1st Class Honours, she has been work- ing on independent, collaborative and client driven projects. Previous projects cross from object and fur- niture design to curation and the study of aesthetics. She is driven by making processes and experimen- tation with material narratives. Working within Indus- trial Design, she adopts the Industry of One practice, immersing herself in the whole process from ideation to making—often through traditional craft process- es. Selecting materials carefully, her design enquiries opt for resilience, and qualities which are enhanced by time and use. (www.georgiacharlotte.net)

Soumitri Varadarajan is Discipline Leader and As- sociate Professor in Industrial Design Program at RMIT University, Melbourne (Australia) and also runs an independent studio. He is currently working on the Asian Encyclope- dia of Design as an editor focusing upon South-East Asia. With Industrial Design training and a PhD in social science, his work combines perspectives in- cluding culture theory, Japanese Aesthetics and social ethnography. He runs studios from a range of aesthetic and material culture perspectives. He has given public lectures as part of his association with Craft Victoria on issues related to craft and the practice of individual creations. He has taught at Les Ateliers, Paris, on ‘anxious objects’ and at the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem on ‘story telling’. He currently supervises an artist doing his PhD on ‘repurposing objects’ and a fashion designer on ‘de- signing garments for the red carpet’. He also holds several international positions: Monitor of Masters Course at Otago Polytechnic (New Zealand), Adjunct Professor at Ambedkar University Delhi (India), Fos- han University (PRC), and Zhejiang University (PRC) and Research Fellow at the National Institute of De- sign (India). (soumitri.wordpress.com) 9 10 11 Mumbai Literature Live! Mumbai LitFest 2012 National Centre for the Performing Arts NCPA Marg, Nariman Point, Mumbai

The Bookwallah joins forces with the Literature MUMBAI EXPLORATIONS: The Bookwallah Nomadic Library in Mumbai Live! Mumbai LitFest, presenting alongside many Words, music and silence of India’s best-loved writers at the National Centre National Centre for the Performing Arts for Performing Arts. Learn the art of writing memoir In Mumbai we dive into the history of Mumbai (NCPA), NCPA Marg, Nariman Point, Mumbai with Benjamin Law. Hear Kirsty Murray on writing via the world of jazz, with local writer Naresh Fer- cross-cultural narratives, or take her workshop on nandes and the Blue . Benjamin Law takes Daily in the foyer of the Tata Theatre. writing for children. Annie Zaidi discusses long-form us on a tour of “gay Bombay”. With Chandrahas journalism and the writer as activist; Chandrahas Choudhury and a host of local writers, performers Choudhury and Michelle de Kretser speak on the and artists, we dine at a local eatery, with short joys of fiction; and Sudeep Sen talks poetry at the story readings. The writers give up their words to launch of his new anthology. You’ll also find the walk in silence through the midnight streets with Bookwallah nomadic library set up in the Tata Annie Zaidi. We engage with children learning to Theatre foyer at NCPA for your browsing pleasure. read and write at a Pratham literacy project, and finish with a behind-the-scenes look at Mumbai slum redevelopment.

12 Title Featuring about Venue Date Time

Writing for Children Kirsty Murray Renowned Australian author Kirsty Murray AV Room above 31.10.12 1030–1230 workshop with Kirsty | shows you what it takes to write a successful The Experimental ...... Murray | novel for children. Theatre, NCPA ...... | | | | ...... | | | | ...... Panel Discussion: Long Annie Zaidi, Naresh Annie Zaldi, Naresh Fernandes, Little Theatre, 31.10.12 1530–1630 Form Journalism Fernandes, Pranay and Pranay Gupte, on the long and NCPA ...... | Gupte Moderator: short of long-form journalism. | ...... | Peter Griffin In the chair is Peter Griffin. | ...... | | | | ...... | | | | ...... 10 ways a novel can Chandrahas With Chandrahas Choudhury, Michelle de Krester Little Theatre, 01.11.12 1530–1630 change your life Choudhury, Michelle and Jeet Thayil. In the chair: Rahul Bose. NCPA ...... | de Kretser, Jeet Thayil | | ...... | Moderator: Rahul Bose | | ...... | | | | ...... The Writer as Activist Tenzin Tsundue, Dilip With Tenzin Tsundue, Dilip D'Souza, Alia Ibrahim, Experimental 02.11.12 1000–1100 | D'Souza, Alia Ibrahim, Trevor Carolan. In the chair: Annie Zaidi. Theatre, NCPA ...... | Trevor Carolan | | ...... | Moderator: Annie Zaidi | | ...... | | | | ...... The use of English Sudeep Sen, Inua Launch of The HarperCollins Book of English Little Theatre, 02.11.12 1400–1500 language in Poetry Ellams,Glyn Maxwell Poetry followed by Sudeep Sen in conversation NCPA ...... | and Ruth Padel with Inua Ellams, Glyn Maxwell and Ruth Padel | ...... | | on the English language in poetry. | ...... | | | | ...... | | | | ...... | | | | ...... Workshop: How to Benjamin Law Memoirist, humourist and journalist Benjamin AV Room above 04.11.12 1030–1230 Write Memoirs with | Law takes you through the basics of writing The Experimental ...... Benjamin Law | a memoir. Theatre, NCPA ...... | | | | ...... | | | | ...... Cross Cultural Kirsty Murray, Moni With Michelle de Kretser, Moni Hohsin and Kirsty Little Theatre 04.11.12 1030–1130 Narratives Mohsin, Michelle de Murray. In the chair: Trevor Carolan. | ...... | Kretser Moderator: | | ...... | Trevor Carolan | | ...... | | | | ...... Gaysia Benjamin Law in A reading from Benjamin Law's book Gaysia, on Experimental 04.11.12 1630–1730 | conversation with travels in the queer East, followed by conversa- Theatre ...... | Parmesh Shahani, tion with Parmesh Shahani and Minal Hajratwala | ...... | Minal Hajratwala | | ...... | | | | ...... | | | | ...... 13 Goa The Bookwallah Travelling Writers Festival Literati Bookshop, E/1-282 Gaura Vaddo, Calangute, Bardez, Goa-403516 www.literati-goa.com

The Bookwallah tour stops in Goa at Literati book- GOAN EXPLORATIONS: The Bookwallah Nomadic Library in Goa shop for a mini-writers-festival from 6–8.30pm on Monday 5th November. You’re invited to meet the In Goa we walk through the city and back in time, Literati Bookshop, E/1-282 Gaura Vaddo, authors, learn about their work, listen to talks and learning of literature, architecture and culture; we Calangute, Bardez, Goa-403516 readings and browse amongst the books. dine with local artists to discuss art, empire and www.literati-goa.com performance; we meet the Goa writers group; and spend time with novelist Margaret Mascarenhas and Monday 5 November 4.00pm–8.30pm her new exhibition of artwork from prisoners at the Tuesday 6 November 10.00am–6.30pm Aguada Jail.

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Questions of Travel Margaret Mascarenhas and Australian literary 05.11.12 1800–1850 | novelist Michelle de Kretser discuss Michelle’s new ...... | book Questions of Travel, a mesmerising novel about ...... | travel, work and modern dreams. Multi-award- ...... | winning Michelle will speak of the intertwined ...... | characters - an Australian woman and Sri Lankan ...... | man—and the rich and complex reasons why we ...... | travel, whether as tourists, migrants or refugees...... | | ...... | | ...... | | ...... | | ...... | | ...... | | ...... | | ...... Questions of Belonging Part two of the evening introduces both serious 05.11.12 1900–2015 | discussions and comic insights from Benjamin ...... | Law, Annie Zaidi, Kirsty Murray and Chandrahas ...... | Choudhury, on the theme of identity and ...... | belonging. They’ll touch on far-ranging topics ...... | like love and loneliness, queer culture in Asia, ...... | modern dreams, runaway teens and more...... | | ...... | | ...... | | ...... | | ...... | | ...... | | ...... 15 Bangalore Bangalore Literature Festival Pre-Festival Program Bangalore International Centre (BIC) 4th Main Road, Domlur II Stage, Domlur, Bangalore The Question of Travel 1Shanthiroad, 1, Shanthiroad, Shanthinagar

The Bookwallah tour joins the Bangalore Literature Bangalore EXPLORATIONS: The Bookwallah Nomadic Library Festival for a pre-festival program of books, writers in Bangalore and ideas: modern love, how the novel can change In Bangalore the Bookwallah authors continue their your life, new Indian poetry in English, and the exploration of Indian cities on foot, walking through Bangalore International Centre increasing visibility of queer writing in India. Then Bangalore with visual artist and founder and direc- TERI Complex, 4th Main, we move to 1Shanthiroad art studio and gallery for tor of 1Shanthiroad, Suresh Jayaram, in search of its 2nd Cross, Domlur II Stage a night of travel tales, from tourists to refugees forgotten stories. Local writer Anjum Hasan takes Friday 9–Saturday 10 November and beyond. us to the suburbs for a glimpse of the gleaming malls and fast-food joints of the newly rising Indi- 1Shanthiroad, 1, Shanthiroad, Shantinagar an middle classes. We discuss water shortages and Sunday 11–Monday 12 November conservation in the region with a local NGO; and visit IT giant Infosys for an ‘Open Your Mind’ forum. We dive into Sufi poetry and song with Shabnam Virma- ni and local poets, and join the OzFest Melbourne Comedy Festival tour in search of Bangalore’s best comedians.

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Ten Ways the Novel Chandrahas Choudhury Chandrahas Choudhury knows about novels. He’s bic 09.11.12 1830–1930 Can Change Your Life | written a very good one—Arzee the Dwarf—and | ...... | | as a literary blogger and critic for The New York | ...... | | Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street | ...... | | Journal, novels have changed his life. Join him | ...... | | for an entertaining literary lecture on how novels | ...... | | can change yours. | ...... | | | | ...... The New Poetry: The Sudeep Sen Sudeep Sen is a prolific poet, and the editor of bic 09.11.12 1930–2030 HarperCollins Book of | the new HarperCollins Book of English Poetry. | ...... English Poetry | The book reflects the vibrant contemporary | ...... | | poetry culture of both India and the broader | ...... | | Indian diaspora—the United States and Canada, | ...... | | The United Kingdom and Europe, Africa and Asia, | ...... | | Australia and the Pacific. Sudeep Sen and special | ...... | | local guests discuss the book, with readings. | ...... | | | ...... Modern Love Part 1: Annie Zaidi, Michelle So much of modern life, and so much of bic 10.11.12 1830–1930 Connection and de Kretser, Shinie literature, is about the search for connection | ...... Isolation Antony, Abhijit Bhaduri in love, and the difficulty of ever finding it. | ...... | | Three strong female authors—Shinie Antony, | ...... | | Michelle de Kretser and Annie Zaidi—discuss | ...... | | life, loneliness and connection in their work with | ...... | | Abhijit Bhaduri. | ...... | | | | ...... Modern Love Part 2: Benjamin Law, Minal What defines Queer literature? Is it about the bic 10.11.12 1930–2030 Thinking Queer, Hajratwala, Danish sexual orientation of the author, or the themes it | ...... Writing Literature Sheikh explores? Is the sexual identity of an author | ...... | | incidental these days—or is there a need for | ...... | | a “ghetto” of queer writing to give voice to a | ...... | | silenced community? | ...... | | | | ...... | | | ...... The Question of Travel Chandrahas Home: there are so many reasons for leaving, 1Shanthiroad, 12.11.12 1900–2100 | Choudhury, Benjamin and so many reasons for going back. With 1,Shanthiroad ...... | Law, Michelle de more Indians travelling abroad than ever, | ...... | Kretser, Kirsty and the increase in migrants and refugees, | ...... | Murray, Annie the Bookwallah’s travelling writers reflect on | ...... | Zaidi, Sudeep Sen just what it is that makes us move. We look | ...... | | at migrants in Australia, tourists in London, | ...... | | journalists in remote Madhya Pradesh, Australian | ...... | | child performers in India in 1910; poets in the | ...... | | mountains and more. | ...... | | | | ...... 17 Chennai The Bookwallah Travelling Writers Festival — Mini-Festival, Apparao Galleries, No. 7, Wallace Gardens, 3rd Street, Nungambakkam, Chennai — The Lilliputians Book Launch, Landmark Bookstore Citi Centre, No: 10 & 11 DR.Radhakrishnan Road, Mylapore, Chennai — Gala Night, Hotel Taj Connemara, Binny Road, Chennai

Week three sees the Bookwallah tour arriving chennai EXPLORATIONS: The Bookwallah Nomadic Library in Chennai in Chennai to present another Bookwallah mini- writers festival over two nights. On the 15th we’re In Chennai the Bookwallah authors experience On the 15th of November the library opens for at the Landmark Citi Centre Bookstore to launch some of the city’s vibrant culture of traditional business at Apparao Galleries, No. 7, Wallace Kirsty Murray’s novel set in colonial Chennai. Then dance; walk the streets and dine with local authors; Gardens, 3rd Street, Nungambakkam; then on we set up the travelling library at Apparao Gallery meet the Madras Book Club; take a look at the Rajiv the 16th you’ll find us at the Hotel Taj Cone- and gather round to discuss aspirations and Ghandi Salai IT corridor, and present lectures and marra, Binney Road. dreams for a better life and the best of poetry from talks at the University of Madras, the Asian College both sides of the Indian Ocean. Then for the gala of Journalism, and other local colleges. night on the 16th at the Vivanta by Taj Connemara, all the participants gather for an uproarious review of the train journey so far with Jennifer Arul; and look at literature, place and identity in Australia and India with Bishwananth Ghosh.

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The Lilliputians: a Kirsty Murray The Lilliputians is a vivid, award-winning novel Landmark 15.11.12 1830 children’s mutiny in | based on the fascinating true story of a group Citi Centre ...... Chennai | of young Australian performers - aged seven | ...... | | to seventeen - who toured Asia and India early | ...... | | in the twentieth century. In Chennai in 1910 | ...... | | they walked out on their manager, precipitating | ...... | | a sensational court case, and stranding | ...... | | themselves in the process. Hear Kirsty talk about | ...... | | the book, and the truth behind the story. | ...... | | | | ...... Dreaming of different Chandrahas Choudhury, Everyone dreams of being someone else: Apparao 15.11.12 1900–2000 lives: Chandrahas Michelle de Kretser richer, taller, kinder, healthier, a better Galleries ...... Choudhury in | writer or simply better at the crossword. | ...... conversation | Chandrahas Choudhury discusses his novels, | ...... | | his characters, and the dreams that drive both | ...... | | fiction and life. With Michelle de Kretser. | ...... | | | | ...... Winds, currents Sudeep Sen, Annie India and Australia are two nations with a rich Apparao 15.11.12 2000–2100 and the elements of Zaidi, Benjamin Law, poetic history. One older than the other, both Galleries ...... disguise: Antipodean Michelle De Kretser, with old roots, both diverse in their voices and | ...... and Indian poetry Sharanya Manivannan forms. The two have rarely spoken together. | ...... | | Sudeep Sen and Annie Zaidi bring poems from | ...... | | India, including from the HarperCollins Book | ...... | | of English Poetry; Benjamin Law and Michelle | ...... | | de Kretser bring some favourite poems from | ...... | | Australia to create a poetic conversation across | ...... | | the seas. | ...... | | | | ...... | | | | ...... The Bookwallah: Jennifer Arul, The Bookwallah train tour has been travelling Hotel Taj 16.11.12 1900–2000 reflections on a Chandrahas Choudhury, India for three weeks, presenting at festivals, Connemara ...... journey Michelle de Kretser, exploring local ideas and meeting a whole host | ...... | Kirsty Murray, Benjamin of fascinating Indian thinkers. Join the authors | ...... | Law, Sudeep Sen, for a lively discussion of their literary life on the | ...... | Annie Zaidi trains, and the view of India from their window. In | ...... | | conversation with Jennifer Arul. | ...... | | | | ...... The Art of Place , How much does where you’re from make you Hotel Taj 16.11.12 2000–2100 | Kirsty Murray, who you are? Five writers from five very different Connemara ...... | Benjamin Law, cities—Sydney, Chennai, Brisbane, Mumbai and | ...... | Michelle de Kretser, Melbourne—look at conjuring a sense of place in | ...... | Chandrahas literature, and the connections between home, | ...... | Choudhury migration and identity. | ...... | | | | ...... 19 Pondicherry The Bookwallah Travelling Writers Festival Aurodhan Gallery, 33 Rue François Martin, Kuruchikuppam, Pondicherry

Pondicherry is the end of the line for the pondicherry EXPLORATIONS: The Bookwallah Nomadic Library Bookwallah tour, culminating in a night of in Pondicherry celebration, story, music and dance at the Local author Peter Richards takes us on a tour of Aurodhan Gallery. When the night is done we Pondicherry’s back-streets; and we pay a visit to You’ll find our roving library/installation full settle in for a final three-day writers retreat, Auroville to learn about both the legacy of Sri Au- of Australian fiction, non-fiction, children’s giving the writers time to reflect, write and relax. robindo, and progressive environmental projects. books and poetry at the Aurodhan Gallery on the 17th and 18th of November. Then we move to the Pondicherry University Library from the 19th–20th of November.

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The Bookwallah Chandrahas The Bookwallah tour Aurodhan 17.11.12 1830–2030 Mini-writers Choudhury, Michelle finishes three weeks Gallery ...... Festival Finale de Kretser, Benjamin of travel across India ...... | Law, Kirsty Murray, with a celebration of ...... | Sudeep Sen, Annie local and international ...... | Zaidi, Sharanya stories, and poems, ...... | Manivannan plus music, dance and ...... | | tales from our literary ...... | | explorations of India...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... | | | ...... 21 The library catalogue

Papunya School Book of Country

[email protected] [email protected] and History Bridie’s Fire A Prayer for Blue Delaney Papunya School Staff Kirsty Murray Kirsty Murray Allen & Unwin Allen & Unwin Allen & Unwin

Don’t Peak at High School Multi-award-winning, The Papunya Bridie’s Fire is the tale of a fiery Irish A Prayer for Blue Delaney follows Fiona Scott-Norman (ed.) School Book of Country and History is a girl who leaves Ireland to find a home the outback adventures of orphaned Affirm Press unique and fascinating account of the for herself in gold rush Australia. Colm, who runs away from the cru- history of Western Desert communi- Bridie’s Fire is heart-warming story elties of Bindoon Boys’ Home and For the one in four Australian kids ties from an Indigenous perspective. of courage and resilience. It affirms goes in search of a family of his own. affected by bullying, the so-called Kirsty Murray’s keen understanding This action-packed story, set in the ‘best days of your life’ can feel more of the human spirit. 1950s, continues the richly detailed like Guantanamo Bay for Teens. In historical quartet that began with the Don’t Peak At High School, Australia’s author’s Bridie’s Fire and Becoming most talented, successful and pop- Billy Dare. For rights details and publisher contacts: For ular stars reveal how being bullied shaped their lives. Contributors include: Brendan Cowell, Megan Washington, Adam Goodes, Penny Wong, Charlie Pick- ering, Tim Ferguson, Bindi Cole, Ju- dith Lucy, Paul Capsis, Eddie Perfect, By the River Benjamin Law, Marieke Hardy, Kate Stephen Herrick Miller-Heidke, Wendy Harmer and Allen & Unwin Becoming Billy Dare Adam Boland. Kirsty Murray This is a memorable YA novel about Allen & Unwin the tough and tender sides of grow- The Secret Life of Maeve Lee Kwong ing up in a small country town. Four- Becoming Billy Dare follows the life Kirsty Murray teen-year-old Harry has a knack for of a feisty Irish boy who runs away Allen & Unwin wriggling out of trouble, but escaping to Australia and finds his vocation as the constraints and memories that an actor in the colourful theatres of Where do you turn when your fami- keep him trapped is not easy, until Melbourne, around the time of Fed- ly is tragically torn apart, your close it’s a matter of life or death. eration. Character, choice and desti- friends fall away, and your long-lost ny intertwine in this richly detailed father is out of reach? Where do you fit historical novel. when you’re part Irish, part Chinese, part Australian? The Secret of Maeve Lee Wong is a warm-hearted story 22 about teenage life in Australia now. until he is driven from Sri Lanka by was additionally Shortlisted for the devastating events. 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Award-winning author Michelle (Best Book, Asia-Pacific Region); de Kretser illuminates travel, work Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and modern dreams in this brilliant 2008; Longlisted for the Orange Prize evocation of the way we live now. for Fiction 2008 and Shorlisted for Wonderfully written, Questions of the Orange Prize’s Shadow Youth Travel is an extraordinary work of Panel 2008. imagination—a transformative, very Black Juice funny and intensely moving novel. Vulture’s Gate Margo Lanagan Kirsty Murray Allen & Unwin Allen & Unwin

10 outstanding stories that delight, It is 40 years into the future and the shock, intrigue, amuse and move the world is in turmoil. A plague has de- reader to tears with their dazzling stroyed humans’ ability to conceive imaginative reach, their dark hu- females, or so Callum thinks until he mour, their subtlety, their humanity meets Bo. A page-turning adventure and depth of feeling. unfolds as the pair rely on each other Black Juice has been recognised in Jasper Jones to survive a dangerous journey to a 17 awards internationally, including Craig Silvey safe haven in the city of Vulture’s Gate. two World Fantasy Awards and a VIC The Lost Dog Allen & Unwin Vulture’s Gate was Shortlisted, 2010 Premier’s literary award. It was also Michelle de Kretser NSW Premier’s Literary Awards—Eth- shortlisted for the NSW + the QLD Pre- Allen & Unwin Late on a hot summer night in the tail el Turner Prize for young people’s lit- mier’s literary awards. end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a pre- erature. Listed for the Man Book Prize and cocious and bookish boy of thirteen, published to wide acclaim, The Lost is startled by an urgent knock on the Dog is a moving, funny and beauti- window of his sleep-out. His visitor ful contemporary Australian novel is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the filled with luminous writing and regional mining town of Corrigan. startlingly wise observations. Tom Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Loxley is holed up in a remote bush Jasper is a distant figure of danger shack trying to finish his book on and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jas- Henry James when his beloved dog per begs for his help, Charlie eagerly goes missing. What follows is a tri- steals into the night by his side, ter- umph of storytelling, as The Lost Dog ribly afraid but desperate to impress. Questions of Travel loops back and forth in time to take The Pen Macquarie Anthology Michelle de Kretser the reader on a spellbinding journey Of Australian Literature Allen & Unwin into worlds far removed from the Nicholas Jose (ed.) present tragedy. Allen & Unwin A mesmerising literary novel, Ques- The Lost Dog has been recognised tions of Travel charts two very dif- in numerous awards and in 2008 A landmark anthology of Australian ferent lives. Laura travels the world was the winner of the NSW Premier’s literary writing across all genres from before returning to Sydney, where Book of the Year Award and the Chris- over two centuries, this is an authori- she works for a publisher of travel tina Stead Prize for Fiction (NSW Pre- tative collection more than six years guides. Ravi dreams of being a tourist mier’s Literary Awards). The Lost Dog in the making, providing a window 23 onto Australian culture. An essential world including CBCA Picture Book described as ‘representative’ of an age: inal and Islander Observance Day addition to every Australian’s library. of the Year; Two Premier’s Literary an Australian whose easy familiarity Committee Award for “outstanding Awards; Honours in Germany, Brazil, with the breadth of European culture contribution to the promotion of in- Japan and a short-listing for the presti- puts most Europeans to shame, he digenous culture”. gious Kate Greenway Medal in the UK. has long held the reputation of one of our most intellectually promiscuous and culturally sophisticated writ- ers. In short, his Selected Poems is a one-volume education: Porter’s subtle

[email protected] [email protected] and profound sense of history permits him to read any event as a point in a dynamic space where the forces of The Great Gatsby time and culture converge. Nicki Greenberg The Rest On the Flight: Selected Po- Allen & Unwin ems was winner of the Duff Cooper Prize, Whitbread Prize, Australian Maybe Tomorrow Nicki Greenberg’s adaptation of The Hamlet Literary Society Gold Medal, and the Boori Pryor & Meme McDonald Great Gatsby is breathtaking—a won- Nicki Greenberg Queen’s Gold medal. Allen & Unwin derful homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Allen & Unwin jazz-age classic that brings to life the From the Aboriginal fringe camps of glitter, the melancholy and the grand In this sumptuous staging of Shake- his birth to the catwalk, basketball and crumpled dreams of Fitzgerald’s speare’s enigmatic play on the page, court, DJ console and more, this is unforgettable characters. In the ex- Nicki Greenberg has created an ex- a new anniversary edition of Boori For rights details and publisher contacts: For quisitely realised setting of 1920s traordinary visual feast that sweeps Monty Pryor’s life is as powerful now New York, a throng of fantastical up everything in its path as the dra- as it was when it was first published creatures play out the drama, the wry ma intensifies both on stage and in 1998. With writer and photogra- humour and the tragedy of the novel. off. An astounding graphic novel— pher Meme McDonald, Boori leads unique, gripping and, as ever, tragic. you along the paths he has traveled, pausing to meet his family and Shake a Leg friends, while sharing the story of Boori Pryor & Jan Ormerod his life, his pain, and his hopes, with Allen & Unwin humor and compassion.

From pizza shop to bora ground, here is a joyous celebration of food, dance and cultural understanding. When three young boys go to a piz- Fox za parlour and meet an Aboriginal Margaret Wild/Ron Brooks chef who speaks Italian and makes a Allen & Unwin The Rest On The Flight: Selected Poems deadly pizza, they’re in for a surprise! Peter Porter Boori Monty Pryor is an indigenous A breathtaking story of friendship, Allen & Unwin Australian author who has played in love, risk and betrayal. This tenth two World Masters Games in Basket- anniversary edition brings a modern Satirist, philosopher, elegist, apho- ball competitions, winning a Silver Foal’s Bread classic to a new generation of readers. rist, cultural historian—Peter Porter Medal for Australia in 1994. In 1990 Gillian Mears 24 Fox has won acclaim around the is perhaps too singular a talent to be he was awarded the National Aborig- Allen & Unwin The sound of horses’ hooves turns realized. For over a decade, Gam- hollow on the farms west of Wirri. mage has examined written and Set in hardscrabble farming coun- visual records of the Australian try and around the country show landscape. He has uncovered an high-jumping circuit that prevailed extraordinarily complex system of in rural prior to land management using fire and the the Second World War, Foal’s Bread life cycles of native plants to ensure tells the story of two generations of plentiful wildlife and plant foods the Nancarrow family and their for- throughout the year. tunes as dictated by the vicissitudes The Dream of a Thylacine Animal People of the land. Ron Brooks Charlotte Wood Allen & Unwin Allen & Unwin

A shimmering encounter with the “He could not find one single more Tasmanian Tiger. A lament for a lost word to say. I just want to be free. He species. Another stunning picture could not say those words. They had book from Margaret Wild and Ron already withered in his mind, turned Brooks—the creators of Fox. to dust. He did not even know, he marveled now, what the hell those words had meant.” Charlotte Wood takes a character from her bestsell- My Hundred Lovers ing book The Children and turns her Susan Johnson Crow Country unflinching gaze on him and his Allen & Unwin Kate Constable world in Animal People. Allen & Unwin Lyrical and exquisite, My Hundred Lovers captures the sheer wonder of Sadie isn’t thrilled when her mother life, desire and love. A woman, on the drags her from the city to live in the eve of her fiftieth birthday, reflects country town of Boort. But soon she on her days with one hundred scenes starts making connections—connec- The Little Refugee from a life adding up to a simple tions with the country, with the past, Ahn Do & Bruce Whatley human truth. By turns humorous, with two boys, Lachie and Walter, and, Allen & Unwin sharp, haunting and wise, this is an most surprisingly, with the ever-pres- original and exhilarating novel from ent crows. When Sadie is tumbled The Little Refugee is a picture book one of Australia’s premier writers. back in time to view a terrible crime, that tells Anh Do’s story of the au- she is pulled into a strange mystery. thor’s amazing journey. From a child- The Biggest Estate On Earth Can Sadie, Walter and Lachie figure hood of poverty in Vietnam, and the Bill Gammage out a way to right old wrongs, or will aftermath of the Vietnam War, he Allen & Unwin they be condemned to repeat them? and his family and their friends fled from their country by fishing vessel. Across Australia, early Europeans The Little Refugee is a testimony to commented again and again that the power of hope, resilience, family, the land looked like a park. Bill friends and good humor to carry us Gammage has discovered this was through even the darkest of times. because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we have ever 25 ing violence in the community. Benjamin Law considers himself Winner, National Year of Reading pretty lucky to live in Australia: he 2012, ; Shortlist- can hold his boyfriend’s hand in pub- ed, 2010 Human Rights Literature lic and lobby his politicians to recog- Non-fiction Award; and Shortlisted, nise same-sex marriage. But as the Book of the Year 2010 child of migrants, he’s also curious about how different life might have been had he grown up in Asia. So he sets off to meet his fellow Gaysians.

[email protected] [email protected] Kalpana’s Dream The Slap Law takes his investigative duties Judith Clarke seriously, going nude where required Allen & Unwin Allen & Unwin in Balinese sex resorts, sitting back- stage for hours with Thai ladyboy When Neema’s great-grandmother At a suburban barbecue one after- beauty contestants and trying Indi- Kalpana leaves her village in India noon, a man slaps an unruly boy. The an yoga classes designed to cure his to visit her family in Australia, Nee- boy is not his own. It’s a single act of homosexuality. At once entertaining ma is not sure how to be friends with violence, but the slap reverberates and moving, Gaysia is a wild ride­—a her, but a boy on a skateboard brings through the lives of everyone who The Sex Lives of Australians fascinating quest by a leading Aus- them together, and they both find witnesses it. To smack or not to smack Frank Borgiorno tralian writer. something they’ve long forgotten. is the question that reverberates Black Inc. Judith Clarke writes with humor through the interconnected lives dis- and insight, and introduces a teacher sected in this award-winning novel. Cross-dressing convicts, effeminate known as the Bride of Dracula! bushrangers and women-shortage For rights details and publisher contacts: For woes—here is the first ever history of sex in Australia, from Botany Bay to the present-day. In this readable social history, the author uses vivid examples to chart the changing sex lives of Australians. The Sex Lives of Australians is a thought-provoking story of sex in Australia. Into the Woods Anna Krien Black Inc. Listening to Country The Ink Bridge Ros Moriaty For many years, the Tasmanian wil- Neil Grant Allen & Unwin derness has been the site of a fierce Allen & Unwin struggle. At stake is the future of old- Full of warmth and honesty, Listen- growth forests. Loggers and police A remarkable and gripping story ing to Country opens a rare and vivid face off with protesters deep in the about one refugee boy on a desperate window to the voices, humour and forest, while savage political games journey from Afghanistan, and the strength of the remarkable Law wom- are played in the courts and parlia- Australian boy who befriends him. en of the remote Gulf of Carpentaria. ments. In Into the Woods, Anna Krien, Listening to Country reveals the hu- Gaysia armed with a notebook, a sleeping man relationships and philosophical Benjamin Law bag and a rusty sedan, ventures be- insights transcend the heartbreaking Black Inc. hind the battle lines to see what it is 26 material poverty, illness and increas- like to risk everything for a cause. superb and original memoir, Anna Goldsworthy recalls her first steps towards a life in music, from child- hood piano lessons with a local rock muso to international fame as a con- cert pianist.

Necessary Evil Growing Up Asian in Australia The Best Australian Stories 2011 Craig Sherborne Alice Pung (ed.) Cate Kennedy (ed.) Black Inc. Black Inc. Black Inc.

In this volume of poems Craig Sher- Asian-Australians are known to each In The Best Australian Stories 2011, borne takes up some of the themes other and the outside world by many Cate Kennedy presents the most explored in his riveting memoir Hoi labels: Quiet Achiever. FOB. Gang- outstanding short fiction of the past Poloi. Magnificent and realistic po- ster Chigger. Mainlander. Banana. year. Contributors include Chris ems of family, racing and journalism. But are these labels based on some Her Father’s Daughter Womersley, Karen Hitchcock, Nich- degree of truth, or only fiction? What Alice Pung olas Jose, Debra Adelaide, Mark is it like to grow up Asian in Austra- Black Inc. Dapin, Marele Day, , lia? In Growing Up Asian in Austra- , Favel Parrett, Mark lia presents the views of respected At twenty-something, Alice is hun- O’Flynn, Jennifer Mills, Tim Rich- public figures as well as exciting new gry for the milestones of young wom- ards, Gretchen Shirm, Michael Sala, voices, drawn from all walks of life anhood: leaving home, choosing a Joanne Riccioni, Julie Chevalier, and spanning several generations. career, finding friendship and love Russell King, Deborah FitzGerald, With insight, courage and a large on her own terms. But with each step Rebecca Giggs, Nick Smith, Sarah dose of humour, this book sheds she takes away from home, she feels Holland-Batt, Penny O’Hara, Stepha- new light on what it is like to grow the sharp tug of invisible threads: the nie , Kate Rotherham, Miriam up Asian, and Australian. love and worry of her Chinese-Cam- Sved, Karen Manton, Sharon Kent, People in Glass Houses bodian parents, who want more than Leah Swann, Cathrine Cole, Liam Tanya Levin anything to keep her from harm. Davison and Marion Halligan. Black Inc. Her Father’s Daughter captures a fa- ther-daughter relationship in a mov- A controversial, eye-opening journey ing and astonishingly powerful way. in and out of faith. Tanya Levin grew up in the church that became Hill- song the country’s most ambitious, entrepreneurial and influential re- ligious corporation. People in Glass Houses tells how a small Assemblies of God church in a suburban school Piano Lessons hall became a multi-million dollar Anna Goldsworthy tax-free enterprise and a powerful Black Inc. Panic force in Australia today. David Marr This is a story of the getting of wis- Black Inc. dom, tender and bittersweet. In this 27 Australians see themselves as a ride through a world of pub rock, big At thirty-eight, Lizzie Quealy thinks relaxed and tolerant bunch. But hair, wild nights and mornings af- she has things sorted: a happy rela- scratch the surface and you’ll un- ter. With irrepressible humour and tionship, a couple of gorgeous kids, cover an extraordinary level of fear. a bulging little black book, Nikki a steadfast best friend and a career Cronulla. Henson. Hanson. Wik. McWatters recalls an age when ev- she loves. But when Lizzie bumps Haneef. The boats...Panic shows all erything seemed possible—even if into Tom, an old flame from her glo- of David Marr’s characteristic in- everything wasn’t such a good idea. betrotting twenties, her life begins sight, quick wit and brilliant prose to unravel. Sexy and hilarious, The as he cuts through the froth and fury Happiness Show explores the rules

[email protected] [email protected] that have kept Australia simmering The Family Law and taboos of contemporary rela- over the last fifteen years. Benjamin Law tionships—and what happens when Black Inc. they stand in the way of one woman’s pursuit of happiness. Meet the Law family—eccentric, endearing and hard to resist. Your guide: Benjamin, the third of five children and a born humorist. Join him as he tries to answer some puzzling questions: Why won’t his Quarterly Essay: Us and Them Chinese dad wear made-in-China Anna Krien underpants? Why was most of his ex- Black Inc. tended family deported in the 1980s? The Best Australian Poems 2011 Will his childhood dreams of Home In this dazzling piece of reportage, For rights details and publisher contacts: For John Tranter (ed.) and Away stardom come to nothing? Anna Krien investigates the con- Black Inc. What are his chances of finding love? temporary animal kingdom and our Selected Poems place in it. From pets to food, from In The Best Australian Poems 2011, wildness to science experiments, Black Inc. celebrated poet John Tranter selects Krien also reveals how animals are the most vigorous, varied and inter- faring in this new world order. Ex- Les Murray’s Selected Poems displays esting poems of the last year. This amples range from the joyful to the the full range of his poetic art. This sparkling collection shines a light deeply unsettling. volume contains all the poems he on the phantasmagorical nature of wants to preserve, apart from the poetry, evoking images, transfor- verse novel Fredy Neptune, from mations and events that range from his first bookThe Ilex Tree (1965) to the playful to the melancholy by way Poems the Size of Photographs (2002). of exuberance and satire. Featuring In tracing Murray’s artistic devel- award-winning poems alongside One Way or Another opment, Selected Poems shows an brand-new works, as well as a mix of Nikki McWatters ever-changing power, grace and hu- emerging and renowned poets, this Black Inc. mour, as well as great versatility and is a volume of surreal beauty and formal mastery. emotional resonance. In 1981, fifteen-year-old Nikki McWatters is living in a Gold Coast suburb, dragging herself through The Happiness Show humdrum schooldays and dreaming Catherine Deveny of losing her virginity to a rock star. Black Inc. 28 One Way or Another is a rollicking ble on the folly of hero-worship, the perils of self-justifying notions of destiny and the vanity of all human striving.”—Publisher’s Weekly This is a new edition of the award- winning novel, out of print now for several years. The Death of Napoleon is now a motion picture, and this edition contains a new preface by The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll the author—a long-time resident of Collected Poems How to Make Trouble and Influence Robert Forster Australia who is truly a global citizen. John Forbes People Black Inc. Brandl & Schlesinger Iain McIntyre Breakdown Press This is a roller-coaster ride through “Forbes’s lines can play against each the history and present of popular other with the abrasion and the flare How to Make Trouble reveals Austra- music—from The Monkees, The of matches lighting.”—Sydney lia’s radical past through tales of In- Rolling Stones, Nana Mouskouri and Morning Herald digenous resistance, convict revolts Neil Diamond to Cat Power, Antony “...it is the bruising, the possibil- and escapes, picket line hi-jinks, stu- and the Johnsons, Franz Ferdinand ity of impact, that you feel most in dent occupations, creative direct ac- and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and cov- Forbes poetry.”—Australian Book tion, media pranks, urban interven- ering such Australian mainstays as Review tions, squatting, blockades, banner Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mark Part of the ‘Generation of 1968’, drops, street theatre and billboard Seymour, Paul Kelly and the Count- Unpolished Gem Forbes began publishing his poems liberation; and over 300 spectacular down spectacular. Alice Pung in the early 1970s. His first collection photos documenting the vital history Black Inc. of poetry, Tropical Skiing, was pub- of creative resistance in this country. lished in 1976. He worked at various This is an original take on a classic jobs, ranging from furniture remov- story—how a child of immigrants als to writer-in-residence and liter- moves between two cultures. In place ary reviewer. Moving to Melbourne of piety and predictability, however, in 1989, he was closely involved in Unpolished Gem offers a vivid and literary activities including festivals ironic sense of both worlds. Original and readings, and was involved with and brave, Alice Pung’s memoir in- small presses and literary journals troduces an unforgettable voice and such as Scripsi (1981–1994). captures the experience of Asian im- The Death Of Napoleon migrants to Australia. Simon Leys Global Sex Black Inc. Dennis Altman Footprint Books “In this deliciously sardonic fable, Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from Global Sex is the first major work to imprisonment on the isle of St. Hel- take the issues of globalization and ena. Leys writes an elegant, precise sexuality head on. Dennis Altman prose that ironically evokes the Na- looks at how pleasures of the body poleonic age. His exquisite tale, a are framed, shaped, commercial- gem of a book, can be read as a para- ized, and even commodified in our 29 new global economy, exploring the The book won the C.J. Dennis Prize Kroeger fled Nazi Germany, finding impact of globalization on gender for Poetry (the Victorian State Pre- refuge first in the south of France and relations, political power, public mier’s award for poetry), and the later, in great despair, in Los Ange- health, migration, and the ways in Judith Wright Calanthe Award (the les, where Nelly committed suicide which we imagine our own sense of Queensland Premier’s Prize for Poet- in 1944 and Heinrich died in 1950. In self and place. ry), and was also short-listed for The train compartments, ship’s cabins Age award and the NSW and South and rented rooms, they called upon Australian Premier’s Literary Prizes. what was left to them—their bod- ies, their minds, their books—and

[email protected] [email protected] Carpentaria amidst the debris of an era of self-de- struction, built their own annexes to Giramondo Publishing Company the House of Exile.

Alexis Wright is one of Australia’s finest Aboriginal writers.Carpen - taria is her second novel, an epic set in the Gulf country of north-western My Place Queensland, from where her people Sally Morgan come. The novel’s portrait of life in Fremantle Arts Centre Press the precariously settled coastal town Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs of Desperance centres on the pow- Gerald Murnane My Place begins with Sally Morgan erful Phantom family, leader of the Giramondo Publishing tracing the experiences of her own Westend Pricklebush people, and its For rights details and publisher contacts: For life, growing up in suburban Perth battles with old Joseph Midnight’s This collection of essays leads the Look Who’s Morphing in the fifties and sixties. Through the renegade Eastend mob on the one reader into the curious and eccentric Tom Cho memories and images of her child- hand, and the white officials of Up- imagination of Gerald Murnane, one Giramondo Publishing hood and adolescence, vague hints town and the neighbouring Gurfurrit of the masters of contemporary Aus- and echoes begin to emerge, hidden mine on the other. tralian writing, author of the classic Look Who’s Morphing is a collection knowledge is uncovered, and a fas- novel The Plains, and winner of the of bizarre, funny, often menacing cinating story unfolds—a mystery Literary Award. fictions in which, along with his ex- of identity, complete with clues and tended family, the central character suggested solutions. undergoes a series of transforma- tions, shape-shifting through figures drawn from film and television, mu- sic clips and video games, porn flicks and comics.

Anything The Landlord Touches Emma Lew House Of Exile Giramondo Publishing Evelyn Juers Giramondo Publishing Anything the landlord touches is Emma Lew’s second collection of In 1933 the author and activist Hein- 30 poetry to be published in Australia. rich Mann and his partner Nelly choices of the individual with the that can form bonds for life, of dispos- What might it be like to encoun- demands of society. session, murder and betrayal. ter a country and its landscape not through a travel guide, or a book tied to facts, but through the eyes and the imaginative universe of its greatest storytellers? India: A Traveller’s Literary Companion is just such a book: a celebration of the centrality The Arrival of place and landscape to the mak- Shaun Tan ing of literature, and the enormously Hachette Australia diverse world of Indian storytelling.

This special boxed set of the best-sell- ing graphic novel The Arrival, and a The Rabbits Arzee the Dwarf new companion volume of commen- John Marsden & Shaun Tan Chandrahas Choudhury tary and developmental drawings, Hachette Australia HarperCollins Sketches from a Nameless Land, will fascinate anyone who has fallen un- A rich and haunting allegory of col- Arzee the dwarf’s dream has come der the spell of Shaun Tan’s timeless onization for all ages and cultures, true. He has been crowned as head story, and offers a revealing insight told from the viewpoint of native projectionist at the Noor, the Bombay into the craft of one of Australia’s animals. This stunning picture book cinema where he has been working most compelling author-illustrators. examines the consequences of the since his teens. Arzee thinks that the arrival of a group of rabbits with en- worst of his troubles are behind him, The HarperCollins Book tirely unfamiliar ways. The parallels and that he can marry and settle down of English Poetry with our own experience are many: now. But not for the first time, Arzee Sudeep Sen (ed) “They chopped down our trees and has it all wrong! This bittersweet HarperCollins scared away our friends and stole our comedy, shuffling between hope and children...” dread, between the yearnings of body ‘Among the 60 essential English-lan- and soul, is a book about the strange guage works of Modern Indian Liter- beauty of human dreaming. ature. An important literary marker’ —World Literature Today The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry by Indians is a major land- Requiem for a beast mark international book that reflects Matt Ottley the vibrant contemporary poetry Hachette Australia culture of India and the broader Indi- an diaspora—the United States and We are largely defined by how we Canada, The United Kingdom and face our fears. A boy goes on a mel- Capricornia Europe, Africa and Asia, Australia ancholy, often terrifying but ulti- and the Pacific. mately life-affirming journey of HarperCollins self-discovery as a stockman in far India: A Literary Travellers North Queensland. In an exquisite- Spanning three generations, Capricor- Companion ly illustrated collage of memory and nia tells the story of Australia’s North. Chandrahas Choudhury (ed) dreamscape, nightmare and cold It is a story of whites and Aborigines HarperCollins reality, Matt Ottley fuses the moral and Asians, of chance relationships 31 Russia and his years spent studying in Cold War Moscow; and of his rest- less wanderings around the world. A Mother‘s Disgrace was shortlist- ed for the Association for the Study of Australian Literature Gold Med- al, the Victorian Premier‘s Literary Awards, and highly commended for the FAW Christina Stead Award, The

[email protected] [email protected] My Brother Jack Age book of the Year and the Nation- The Bedroom Philosopher Diaries Christina Stead George Johnston al Book Council CUB Banjo Award. Justin Heazlewood Hazel Rowley Harper Perennial Miegunyah Press A collection of hilarious and melan- The thing I am trying to get at is what cholic reports from The Bedroom Phi- This new edition of Hazel Rowley’s made Jack different from me. Dif- losopher’s wealth of experience as a highly acclaimed biography of Chris- ferent all through our lives, I mean, touring Folkstar. Read about his epic tina Stead brings to life one of the and in a special sense, not just old- battles with drunk punters, scatty rock most important literary figures of er or nobler or braver or less clever. stars, aloof groupies and mostly—him- her age. An intensely private person, Acknowledged as one of the true self. These tell-all tales allow exclusive Stead lived a life that was stormy, ec- Australian classics, My Brother Jack access to the depths of the performer centric and brave. Stead’s fiction was is a deeply satisfying, complex and psyche. Featuring the razor-sharp large and passionate, original and moving literary masterpiece. writing of Justin Heazlewood. challenging, as was her life. Hazel Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith Rowley’s compelling biography is a For rights details and publisher contacts: For Tom Keneally vigorous, penetrating and sympathet- HarperCollins ic chronicle of Stead’s life and times.

Raised by missionaries, Jimmie Blacksmith, a young half-castle Ab- original man, is poignantly caught between the ways of his black forefa- thers and those of the white society to which he aspires. The Chant of Jim- mie Blacksmith was one of the most A Mother’s Disgrace significant films of the 1970s ‘renais- The Man Who Loved Children Robert Dessaix sance’. It was the first Australian fea- Christina Stead HarperCollins ture in which the whole story is told Melbourne University Press from an Aboriginal perspective and An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Man- Adopted as a baby towards the end it broke new ground in dealing with Sam and Henny Pollit have too many ning Clark of World War II, Robert Dessaix grew one of the most tragic aspects of Aus- children, too little money, and too Mark McKenna up haunted by ‘a shaft of silence‘ sur- tralian history: the racist treatment of much loathing for each other. A chill- Melbourne University Press rounding the question of his natural the Aboriginal population. ing novel of family life, the relations mother‘s identity, and of his iden- between parents and children, hus- Manning Clark (1915-1991) was a com- tity and sexuality. In this touching bands and wives. The Man Who Loved plex, demanding and brilliant man. memoir, he recounts the story of a Children is listed as one of Time Maga- Mark McKenna’s An Eye for Eternity: most unusual childhood on Sydney‘s zine’s top 100 novels of all time. The Life of Manning Clark is a com- 32 North Shore; of his fascination with pelling biography of this Australian icon, informed by his reading of tralia on the eve of the First World War herself stranded in White Point with Clark’s extensive private letters, jour- and lived the rest of her life in Europe; a fisherman she doesn’t love and two nals and diaries. the other lived for decades in the same kids whose dead mother she can nev- house on the outskirts of Sydney. The er replace. Her days have fallen into bohemian and the spinster. They are domestic tedium and social isola- like mirror images of each other. tion. Her nights are a blur of vodka and pointless loitering in cyberspace. Leached of all confidence, Georgie has lost her way; she barely recogniz- es herself. This special edition cele- The Orchard brates 40 years of Picador with one of Drusilla Modjeska Australia’s finest literary reads. Pan MacMillan

Winner of the Australian Booksell- Sydney ers’ Award, this novel blurs together Delia Falconer memories and fiction as an octoge- NewSouth Publishing narian narrates the legend of the sil- Night Letters ver hands to a woman in her twen- Sydney has always been the sexiest Robert Dessaix ties, who in turn passes on the tale to and most gaudy of our cities. In this Pan Macmillan a man who claims it as his own. book, novelist Delia Falconer con- jures up its sandstone, humidity, Every night for twenty nights in a and jacarandas. But she goes beyond hotel room in Venice, an Australian these to find a far more complex city: man recently diagnosed with an in- That Deadman Dance beautiful, violent, half-wild, and at curable disease writes a letter home times deeply spiritual. to a friend. In these letters he reflects Pan Macmillan on questions of mortality, seduction and the search for paradise in deeply Bobby Wabalanginy never learned life-enhancing ways. fear, not until he was pretty well a grown man. Told through the eyes of black and white, young and old, this is a story about a fledgling Western Aus- Tirra Lirra By The River tralian community in the early 1800s Jessica Anderson known as the ‘friendly frontier’. Poet- Picador ic, warm-hearted and bold, it is a story for our times. That Deadman Dance Nora Porteous has spent most of her has won several awards, including life waiting to escape. Now in her sev- Stravinsky’s Lunch the 2011 and the enties, Nora returns to Queensland to Drusilla Modjeska 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize settle into her childhood home. But Pan Macmillan for Fiction—regional winner. Nora has been away a long time, and Dirt Music the people and events of her past are Stella Bowen and Grace Cossington not at all like she remembered them. Smith were born a year apart, in the Pan Macmillan antipodean autumns of 1893 and 1892 respectively. Beyond this fact their Georgie Jutland is a mess. At forty, lives were very different. One left Aus- with her career in ruins, she finds 33 the unruly wild boy Finnigan, with whom he made a boyhood pact. When a series of arson attacks grips the town, Gabriel realises how unpre- dictable and dangerous Finnegan is. Events begin to spiral out of control, and it becomes clear that only the most extreme of measures will rid Gabriel of Finnegan for good.

[email protected] [email protected] Mateship with Birds The Hunter The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney Carrie Tiffany Julia Leigh Henry Handel Richardson Picador Penguin Penguin

Mateship with Birds is a novel about An unnamed man, M, arrives at a Set in Australia during the gold-min- young lust and mature love. It is remote house on the fringe of a vast ing boom, this remarkable trilogy is a hymn to the rhythm of country wilderness and soon disappears into one of the classics of Australian lit- life—to vicious birds, virginal cows, a world of silence and stillness. His erature. Richard Mahony, despite adored dogs and ill-used sheep. On one mission: to find the last thylacine, finding initial contentment with his one small farm in a vast, ancient the fabled Tasmanian tiger. She is said wife, Mary, becomes increasingly landscape, a collection of misfits to have passed into myth but a sight- dissatisfied with his ordered life. In question the nature of what a family ing has been reported... The Hunter The Merry-Go-Round In The Sea the figure of Richard Mahony, Rich- can be. is a haunting tale of obsession that ardson captures the soul of the em- builds to an unforgettable conclusion. Penguin igrant, ever restless, ever searching For rights details and publisher contacts: For for some equilibrium, yet never re- In 1941, Rob Coram is six. The war ally able to settle anywhere. feels far removed from his world of aunties and cousins and the beau- tiful, dry landscape of in . But when his favourite, older cousin, Rick, leaves to join the army, the war takes a step closer. The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea allows us a precious glimpse Sometimes Gladness into a simpler kind of childhood in a Bruce Dawe Surrender country that no longer exists. Pearson Education Sonya Hartnett Penguin Of A Boy The sixth edition of Sometimes Glad- Sonya Hartnett ness includes twenty-five new po- As life slips away, Gabriel looks back Penguin ems written between 1997 and 2005. over his brief 20 years that have Bruce Dawe is one of Australia’s most been clouded by frustration and The year is 1977, and Adrian is nine. acclaimed poets and the recipient of humiliation. A small town and dis- He lives with his gran and his uncle numerous awards. tant parents ensure that he is never Rory; his best friend is Clinton Tull. allowed to forget the horrific mistake He loves to draw and he wants a dog; he made as a child. He has only two he’s afraid of quicksand and self-com- 34 friends—his dog Surrender, and bustion. Adrian watches his suburban world, but there is much he cannot they roister and rankle, laugh and understand. He does not, for instance, curse until the roof over their heads know why three neighborhood chil- becomes a home for their hearts. Tim dren might set out to buy ice-cream Winton’s funny, sprawling saga is an and never come back home... epic novel of love and acceptance. Winner of the Miles Franklin and NBC Awards in Australia, Cloud- street is a celebration of people, plac- es and rhythms which has fuelled Henry Lawson Short Stories The Old School imaginations world-wide. Henry Lawson P M Newton Penguin Penguin

One of the great observers of Austra- Detective Nhu ‘Ned’ Kelly is in way lian life, Henry Lawson looms large over her head. Not every member of in our national psyche. Yet at his best the New South Wales police force has Little Paradise Lawson transcends the very bush, the welcomed the young, half-Vietnam- Gabrielle Wang very outback, the very up-country, ese woman into a job where the old Penguin Books the very pub or selector’s hut he con- school still makes the rules. When veys with such brevity and acuity: he two bodies are discovered in the foot- As Mirabel watched him, she could make specific places universal. This ings of an old Bankstown building, not bear the thoughts creeping up on is the essential Lawson collection— Ned catches the case. Familiar faces The Australian Moment her. JJ was in the Chinese army and the classic of Australian classics. begin to look suspicious. It’s time for George Megalogenis his mission in Australia would one Ned to decide who is on her side— Penguin day be over. and who wants her dead. Melbourne, 1943, and Mirabel is Australians are generally uncomfort- seventeen. She’s leaving school, de- able in the global spotlight - outside signing dresses, falling in love. Then of sports stadiums. But after seeing fate intervenes, her forbidden affair us negotiate the Asian financial cri- is discovered, and JJ is posted back sis, the tech wreck and the Global to China where a civil war is raging. Financial Crisis that bred the Great Despite all warnings, Mirabel sets Recession, the world is now turn- off for Shanghai to find him . .Little . ing to us, the ‘miracle economy’, for Paradise is inspired by a true story. guidance. This is the page-turning Seven Little Australians story of our nation’s remarkable Ethel Turner transformation since the ‘70s. Penguin Cloudstreet Tim Winton Judy’s father, Captain Woolcot, found Penguin his vivacious, cheeky daughter impos- sible – but seven children were really From separate catastrophes two ru- too much for him and most of the time ral families flee to the city and find they ran wild at their rambling river- themselves sharing a great, breath- side home, Misrule. Step inside and ing, shuddering joint called Cloud- meet them all. Come and share their street, where they begin their lives lives, their laughter and their tears. again from scratch. For twenty years 35 ‘A lyrical, rough-edged novel full of team, he’s got a killer smile and the warmth and uncompromising feeling’ knack with girls, and he’s a Nunga. —The Sunday Age Blacky’s a gutless wonder, needs braces, never knows what to say, and he’s white. But they’re friends... and it could be deadly, unna? This gutsy novel, set in a small coastal town in South Australia is a rites-of-passage story about two boys confronting the

[email protected] [email protected] The Children’s Bach depth of racism that exists all around Nukkin Ya Helen Garner them. Phillip Gwynne Penguin Penguin Are we There Yet Athena and Dexter lead an enclosed Alison Lester Nukkin Ya is the sequel to Deadly, family life, innocent of fashion and Penguin Unna?. Fifteen-year-old Gary Black, bound towards a disturbed child. ‘Blacky’, isn’t sure what he wants or Their comfortable rut is disrupted by The year I turned eight, Mum and where he is going. The one thing he the arrival of Elizabeth, a tough nut Dad took us on a trip around Austra- does know is that he wants to escape from Dexter’s past. With her three lia. Luke, Billy and I missed school the small country town he’s grown charming, chaotic hangers-on, she for the whole winter term. Join Grace up in. draws the couple out into a world and her family on their adventurous whose casual egotism they had and sometimes funny expedition. barely dreamed of. How can they get A warm, heartfelt story based on an Holding the Man For rights details and publisher contacts: For home again? actual journey undertaken by the Timothy Conigrave much-loved, award-winning author Penguin and illustrator, Alison Lester. The mid-seventies: at an all-boys Catholic school in Melbourne, Timo- thy Conigrave falls wildly and sweetly in love with the captain of the foot- ball team. With honesty and insight Holding the Man explores the highs Thursday’s Child and lows of any partnership, and the Sonya Hartnett strength of heart both men have to Penguin find when they test positive to HIV. Monkey Grip This is a book as refreshing and up- Through the long years of the Great Helen Garner lifting, as it is moving; a funny and Depression, Harper Flute watches Penguin Deadly Unna sad and celebratory account of grow- with a child’s clear eyes her family’s Phillip Gwynne ing up gay. struggle to survive in a hot and im- Inner-suburban Melbourne in the Penguin poverished landscape. As life on the 1970s: a world of communal living, surface grows harsher, her brother drugs, music and love. In this ac- ‘Deadly, unna?’ He was always saying Tin escapes ever deeper into a sub- claimed first novel, Helen Garner that. All the Nungas did, but Dumby terranean world of darkness and captures the fluid relationships of a more than any of them. Dumby Red troubling secrets, until his memory community of friends who are living and Blacky don’t have a lot in com- becomes a myth barely whispered 36 and loving in new ways. mon. Dumby’s the star of the footy around the countryside. with her wealthy classmates and be- “Stephen Edgar is quietly building the gins to compromise her ideals in her Augustan garden of Australian poet- search for popularity and acceptance. ry. Seldom have all the imaginable poetic qualities been combined into such a thoughtful poise, and with so easy-seeming a lyrical impulse… The result is an entire, and entirely unex- pected, bewitchment.” —Clive James Boys of Blood and Bone A Fraction of the Whole David Metzenthen Steve Toltz The Secret Life of Books Penguin Penguin Stephen Edgar Picaro Press Two parallel stories about two young Meet the Deans: Martin, Terry and men, separated by nearly nine de- Jasper. From the New South Wales The Engagement “Simply put, this is brilliant poetry, cades in two different eras. As Andy bush to bohemian Paris, from sports Chloe Hooper the equal of anything in English to- and his mates head inexorably to- fields to strip clubs, from the jungles Penguin day. Australia should welcome the wards the bloody torturous Great War, of Thailand to a leaky boat in the Pa- coming-of-age of an important tal- Henry faces challenges, dangerous cific, Steve Toltz’sA Fraction of the From Chloe Hooper, author of the ent.”—Peter Porter situations and tragedies of his own. Whole follows the Deans on their phenomenal The Tall Man, comes a freewheeling, scathingly funny and brilliant novel about sex and money. finally deeply moving quest to leave The Engagement is a taut psycholog- their mark on the world. ical thriller in which the deft blurring of reality and dark fantasy rivals that of Luis Bunuel’s classic Belle de Jour. This gripping, provocative new novel by one of Australia’s finest writers ex- plores the snares of money and love, and the dark side of erotic imagina- tion. A trap has been set, but how and why? And for whom? Three Dollars My Father’s Moon Elliot Perlman Random House Penguin The Getting of Wisdom Three Dollars chronicles the present The moon belongs to my father. He has Henry Handel Richardson breach of the social contract and always said it was his. Vera is young Penguin its effect on a home near you. It is awkward and naive. As schoolgirl, she a brilliantly deft portrait of a man has her sheltered idealism, her Quaker Henry Handel Richardson’s The Get- attempting to retain his humanity, boarding-school education, and the ting of Wisdom is the coming-of-age his family and his sense of humor warm, enveloping security of her par- story of a spontaneous heroine who in grim and pitiless times: times of ents. As a student nurse at the large finds herself ensconced in the rigidi- downsizing, outsourcing and privat- military hospital during the war, her ty of a turn-of-the-century boarding Lost In The Foreground izing. It is about the legacy of Thatch- transition to womanhood—and vic- school. The clever and highly imagi- Stephen Edgar erism and its effects on people and tim to more experienced players—is native Laura has difficulty fitting in Picaro Press their relationships. rapid, painful and disastrous. 37 masterly evocation of time and place, soon to be very real, Second World of colonialism and the backwash of War. Narrated in a clear, poetic voice, empire. it is a portrayal of the different jour- A miracle of delicacy and restraint, neys we choose to take through life full of volte faces, this is a gripping, and what happens when ordinary nuanced tale of the end of an era, suf- people get caught up in extraordi- fused with ‘the unbearable thought nary, seismic events. that everything might have turned out differently’.

[email protected] [email protected] A Private Man Sixty Lights Malcolm Knox Gail Jones Random House Vintage

It is two days since Dr John Brand’s This is the story of Lucy Strange, a death and his eldest son, Davis, sus- photographer who exists in an ex- pects a cover-up. ‘Survived by two traordinarily heightened state of see- sons’, the death notice said. ‘Peace- ing and imagining. In a contracted, fully.’ But someone has lied: there almost modernist form, Sixty Lights are three sons, and the circumstanc- tracks Lucy’s life from her childhood Blue Grass es of their father’s death are murky. in Australia, to her stormy adoles- Peter Minter Filtered through two arenas of mas- Gould’s Book of Fish cence in England and India and fi- Salt Publishing culinity—cricket and pornography— nally to her death in London at the A Private Man is at once a poignant Random House age of twenty-three. Written with as- “Minter’s work is among the most For rights details and publisher contacts: For story of a family’s grief, an artfully tute imagistic precision, the story is subtly textured lyric poetry presently constructed thriller and a provoca- Winner of the Commonwealth Writ- deeply layered, fluctuating between being written in Australia, animated tive dissection of Australian men and ers Prize. Once upon a time before all past, present and future. by flashes of visionary excess and pre- their private passions. fishes in the sea and all living things cise, intelligent feeling … [it] creates a on the land were destroyed, there was layering of referencing and quotation a man named William Buelow Gould, that works in much the same way as a white convict who fell in love with composting, rotting down to create a black woman and discovered too new matter.”—Alison Croggon, late that to love is not safe. Silly Bil- Poetryetc ly Gould, invader of Australia, liar, murderer & forger, condemned to the most feared penal colony in the British Empire and there ordered to paint a book of fish. The Hamilton Case Gilgamesh Michelle de Kretser Joan London Random House Random House

Murder, moonlight, the jungle crowd- Gilgamesh is the epic story of a moth- ing close...The place is Ceylon, the er’s search for the father of her child time the 1930s. Set amid tea plan- —from Australia to Armenia via En- Flood tations, decay and corruption, this gland and Mesopotamia—all under Jackie French & Bruce Whatley 38 sinuous, subtle, surprising novel is a the shadow of the imminent, and Scholastic Told from the perspective of a unspeakable crime. A searing goth- struction we wreak on one another dog separated from its family, Flood ic novel of love, longing and justice, in the pursuit of our own happiness; helps children to understand the ef- Bereft is about the suffering endured how we never escape our upbringing; fects of a traumatic natural disaster by those who go to war and those who and a stark reminder that the most without being too confronting, while are forever left behind. dangerous place for a child is within the story of the little tugboat that the family. pushes a boardwalk out to sea, stav- ing off further disaster, gives chil- dren a hero they can relate to. Flood is Watching Brief: Reflections on Hu- a beautiful and timely expression of man Rights, Law & Justice the strength of the Australian spirit Julian Burnside during times of adversity. Scribe

Watching Brief is a powerful and timely meditation on justice, law, human rights, and ethics, and ulti- mately on what constitutes a decent Running Dogs human society. It is also an impas- Ruby J. Murray The Lamb Enters The Dreaming sioned and eloquent appeal for Scribe Robert Kenny vigilance in an age of terror—when Scribe ‘national security’ is being used as Set in a global city of poverty, beauty, an excuse to trample democratic corruption and extreme wealth, Run- Robert Kenny challenges many or- principles, respect for the law, and ning Dogs is a novel about power and thodoxies in this profound recon- The Barrumbi Kids human rights. responsibility; about the stories we sideration of how indigenous people Leonie Norrington tell ourselves in order to survive, and and Europeans thought about each Scholastic the damage they can do. other. He traces Aboriginal attempts to accommodate the ‘people of the Tomias’ ancestors have lived in the sheep’ and their pastoralist totem, remote Northern Territory town Jesus, while arguing that it was Eu- of Long Hole since the Dreaming ropean animals more than the settlers and Dale’s grandfather was the first themselves that ruptured the Dream- white man to settle there. Together ing. Brilliantly original in conception they have adventures when they skip and written with a rare lucidity and school for the day, and experience lightness of touch, The Lamb Enters the struggle of growing up in the ra- the Dreaming is a detailed and sensi- cially mixed outback town. Bereft tive exploration and reappraisal of the Chris Womersley relations between Aboriginal and Eu- Scribe Rocks in the Belly ropean societies in the first decades of John Bauer contact in southern Australia. It is 1919. The Great War has end- Scribe ed, but the Spanish flu epidemic is raging across Australia. There are Rocks in the Belly is about a preco- rumors it is the end of the world. In cious eight-year-old boy and the the NSW town of Flint, Quinn Walker volatile adult he becomes. Written returns to the home he fled ten years in two startlingly original voices, earlier when he was accused of an Rocks in the Belly explores the de- 39 These novels follow the fortunes of the Langton family in England and Australia for nearly a century.

[email protected] [email protected] Black Glass Things We Didn’t See Coming Floundering Meg Mundell Steven Amsterdam Romy Ash Scribe Sleepers Text Publishing

Tally and Grace are teenage sisters “The book as a whole is a small mar- Tom and Jordy have been living with living on the outskirts of society, vel, overflowing with ideas. Scary, fun- A Difficult Young Man their gran since the day their moth- dragged from one no-hope town ny, shocking and touching by turns, it Martin Boyd (Text Classics) er, Loretta, left them on her doorstep to the next by their fugitive father. combines the readerly pleasures of Text Publishing and disappeared. Now Loretta’s re- When an explosion rips their lives constant reorientation with the sober turned, and she wants her boys back. apart, they flee separately to the city. charge of an urgent warning. Things A Difficult Young Man, charts the This beautifully written and gripping Now Tally and Grace must struggle We Didn’t See Coming refracts our complex personal relationships in an debut is as moving as it is frightening, to find each other—or just to survive. life-and-death fears through those upper middle class Anglo-Australian and as heartbreaking as it is tender. moments of human contact where they family. It won the Australian Litera- are most keenly felt; some of those fears ture Society Gold Medal in 1956. Along For rights details and publisher contacts: For are eternal, some shockingly new.”— with three other novels, The Card- board Crown, Outbreak of Love, and When Blackbirds Sing, is part what is now known as the “Langton Quar- tet”. These novels follow the fortunes of the Langton family in England and Australia for nearly a century.

What the Family Needed Stasiland Steven Amsterdam Sleepers Text Publishing A Cardboard Crown “What the Family Needed is a won- Martin Boyd—(Text) Stasiland is a lyrical, at times funny derful novel: imaginative, intelligent, Text Publishing account of the courage some people empathetic. It’s like a cross between The Cardboard Crown charts the found to withstand the dictatorship, The Corrections and The Slap, except complex personal relationships in and the consequences for those who without any of the gloom or rage and an upper middle class Anglo-Aus- collaborated. Funder explores the with the addition of something that tralian family and along with three daily chaos and harsh beauty of Ber- may or may not be either a form of other novels is part of what is now lin, a place where some people are magic realism or simply that old sta- known as the “Langton Quartet” in- trying to remember, and others just ple of the literary art, metaphor.”— cluding: Difficult Young Man, Out- as hard to forget. 40 Sydney Morning Herald break of Love, When Blackbirds Sing. about feeling old when you’re young which illness challenges and sub- and acting young when you’re not. verts the self, and explores how writ- ing can become part of the impera- tive to recover. Vivid and compelling, the subject of Tiger’s Eye is not being ill or well, but being alive.

The Broken Shore The Ottoman Motel Text Publishing Christopher Currie Text Publishing Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then; was surer and When Simon and his parents ar- Eucalyptus less thoughtful. But there are conse- rive in the small town of Reception quences when you’ve come so close and check in to the Ottoman Motel, Text Publishing to dying. For Cashin, they included things between them are tense but a posting away from the world of normal. Then, while Simon is asleep, There was once a man on a property True Stories Homicide to the quiet place on the his mother and father disappear. outside a one-horse town, in New Helen Garner coast where he grew up. Now all he More than just an intriguing mystery, South Wales, who couldn’t come to Text Publishing has to do is play the country cop and The Ottoman Motel is a novel about a decision about his daughter. He walk the dogs. And sometimes think fear and loss, and human fallibility. then made an unexpected decision. Garner looks at the world with a about how he was before. Incredible! For a while people talked shrewd and sympathetic eye. Her and dreamed about little else… Euca- non-fiction, with its many voices, is lyptus is a modern fairy tale and an always passionate and compelling. unpredictable love story. Haunting True Stories is an extraordinary book, and mesmeric, it illuminates the na- spanning twenty-five years of work, ture of story-telling itself. by one of Australia’s great writers.

Romulus, My Father Me and Mr Booker Raimond Gaita Cory Taylor Text Publishing Text Publishing

Written simply and movingly, Romu- Looking back, Martha could have lus, My Father is about how a com- said no when Mr Booker first tried passionate and honest man taught to kiss her. That would have been Tiger’s Eye The Secret River his son the meaning of living a de- the sensible thing to do. But she’s Inga Clendinnen Kate Grenville cent life. It is about passion, betrayal sixteen, she lives in a small dull Text Publishing Text Publishing and madness, about friendship and town—a cemetery with lights—her the joy and dignity of work, about father’s mad, her home’s stifling and In this deeply personal book an em- Inspired by research into her own character and fate, affliction and she’s waiting for the rest of her life to inent historian explores her own family history, Kate Grenville vivid- spirituality. begin. Me and Mr Booker is a story history. She dramatizes the ways in ly creates the reality of settler life, its 41 longings, dangers and dilemmas. The esty. In this suite of linked stories, Watch Tower is a novel of relentless Secret River is a brilliantly written she addresses taboos of all kinds with and acute psychological power. book, a groundbreaking story about a subtle wit and an insistence on sex- identity, belonging and ownership. ual pleasure that will delight readers.

[email protected] [email protected] Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and other true tales Annie Zaidi Tranquebar The Spare Room Helen Garner Known Turf is a collection of essays Dog Boy My Brilliant Career Text Publishing that slides between genres, moving Eva Hornung Miles Franklin from reportage to travel to memoir Text Publishing Text Publishing The Spare Room tells a story of com- and back. The author recounts her passion and rage as the two women - experiences as a reporter covering Abandoned in a big city at the onset Written with all the high spirits of one sceptical, one stubbornly serene stories as diverse as the decline of of winter, a hungry four-year-old boy youth, My Brilliant Career is the un- —negotiate their way through Nico- the dacoit in Chambal, hunger, fe- follows a stray dog to her lair. There forgettable tale of Sybylla Melvin, a la’s gruelling treatments. Garner’s male foeticide, and the seeming re- in the rich smelly darkness, in the headstrong country girl—passion- dialogue is pitch perfect, her sense of surgence of Sufism in Punjab. For rights details and publisher contacts: For rub of hair, claws and teeth, he joins ate, endearing, stubborn, honest— pacing flawless as this novel draws to “A beautifully written book, Annie four puppies suckling at their moth- and her fraught journey from rags to its terrible and transcendent finale. Zaidi tells these stories from different er’s teats. And so begins Romochka’s riches to rags. parts of India with compassion, de- life as a dog. tail and importantly, with a gentle humour.”—P. Sainath

Affection Krissy Kneen The Watch Tower Text Publishing Triptych Elizabeth Harrower Krissy Kneen Text Publishing Affection is the true story of a woman, Get Well Soon! Text Publishing her body and the extraordinary ad- Kristy Chambers After Laura and Clare are abandoned ventures they’ve shared. It is erotic, University of Queensland Press Transgressive, sardonic, lyrical, by their mother, Felix is there to help, insightful and gorgeously written—a comic, irresistibly erotic yet also ro- even to marry Laura if she will have profound and disturbing odyssey of Kristy Chambers has spent almost mantic, Krissy Kneen’s writing has him. Set in the leafy northern sub- self-acceptance, from a major new a decade working as a nurse, with 42 been acclaimed for its fearless hon- urbs of Sydney during the 1940s, The voice in Australian literature. patients ranging from drug addicts through cancer patients to those in A work of mesmerizing power, against Emergency. Along the way she met a background of black-white fear and some wonderfully brave people. violence, To the Islands journeys Chambers is a new and idiosyncrat- towards the strange country of one ic voice in memoir writing. Her tone man’s soul. Set in the desolate out- is dark, her humor black, but there back landscape of Australia’s north- is honesty, heart and compassion in west, the novel tracks the last days of Get Well Soon! a worn-out Anglican missionary. The Anatomy Of Wings Latecomers Karen Foxlee Jaya Savige University of Queensland Press University of Queensland Press Ten-year-old Jennifer Day lives in Winner of the prestigious Arts a small mining town full of secrets. Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poet- Trying to make sense of the sudden ry Prize, Jaya Savige’s Latecomers is death of her teenage sister Beth, she a first collection of poems by one of looks to the adult world around her Australia’s most exciting young po- for answers. Karen Foxlee captures ets. Lively, playful, and always intelli- perfectly the essence of growing up New & Selected Poems Pastures of the Blue Crane gent, Savige’s poems show an aware- in a small town and the complexities Laurie Duggan Hesba Brinsmead ness of place, of the inescapability of and absurdities of family life. University of Queensland Press University of Queensland Press history, and a personal commitment Winner 2006 Queensland Pre- to the precision of language. mier’s Literary Award—Best Emerg- Collection of poems, selected by the Brought up in the solitary environ- ing Author poet Laurie Duggan, which is rep- ment of exclusive boarding schools, resentative of more than 20 years Ryl has learned to be independent, of writing and includes previously but when her mysterious father dies, unpublished recent and early work. her whole world changes. Part of her The author has written nine books of inheritance is a half-share in a dilap- poems including East: Poems 1970- idated farm which she shares with a 1974, The Ash Range and The Epi- scruffy grandfather she meets for the grams of Martial. first time. Pastures of the Blue Crane won the CBCA Book of the Year award in 1965, and has been loved by gen- erations of Australian readers since. Swallow the Air Town University of Queensland Press James Roy University of Queensland Press In this startling debut, Tara June Winch uses a fresh voice and unfor- In Town, James Roy turns his hand gettable imagery to share her vision to the short story, using it to explore of growing up on society’s fringes. the lives of the young residents of an Swallow the Air is the story of living Australian town. This town doesn’t To the Islands in a torn world and finding the thread have a name. But if it seems familiar, Randolph Stowe to help sew it back together. it’s because we recognize the people University of Queensland Press who walk its streets. 43 Altman reconsiders Homosexual: Abattoir Town is just another town Oppression and Liberation in light of bypassed by the highway until Mol- the current gay rights debate, as he lie arrives, lugging more than her continues to challenge conventional suitcase of circus tricks. Award-win- notions of sex and gender. ning writer, Catherine Bateson, has written a verse novel which tenderly chronicles country life.

[email protected] [email protected] Aria The Promise of Iceland Sarah Holland-Batt Kari Gislason University of Queensland Press University of Queensland Press

Sarah Holland-Batt’s Aria, winner Born from a secret liaison between a of the 2007 Thomas Shapcott Poetry British mother and an Icelandic fa- Prize, is a striking debut. Like piano ther, Kári Gíslason was the subject of music heard through a high window, a promise—a promise elicited from Collected Poems the language is haunting but entirely his father to not reveal his identity. Gwen Harwood of this world. The poems are awake At the age of 27, he makes a decision University of Queensland Press Wild Card to the dark constellations of art and to break the pact and contacts his Dorothy Hewett history, to what momentarily is, and father’s other family. What follows, This collection represents the full UWA Publishing to what flows endlessly on. and what leads him there, makes for body of Gwen Harwood’s poetry. The a riveting journey over landscapes, outcome of several years of collect- A woman who challenged sexual and For rights details and publisher contacts: For time and memory. ing and academic research, with an political conventions, Hewett com- editorial introduction, and extensive bined the passions of her life with her notes providing background to par- power as a writer to create this classic ticular poems or obscure referenc- of people, place and political history. es, this bountiful publication allows Republished for a new generation of several entry levels into the work of readers, this extraordinary autobi- the provocative and multi-talented ography traces the personal and po- writer, Gwen Harwood. litical metamorphoses of Dorothy Hewett’s first thirty-five years.

The China Garden Kristina Olsson University of Queensland Press Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation As their lives collide, what is buried Dennis Altman can no longer remain hidden. The University of Queensland Press China Garden is a captivating story about betrayal and its echoes across Homosexual: Oppression and Lib- generations. eration stands as an early work in the gay liberation movement that His Name in Fire recognised the divisions within that Catherine Bateson Thirty Days’ Notice movement as a form of healthy di- University of Queensland Press Cath Keneally 44 versity. In this anniversary edition Wakefield Press Reflective, wry and occasionally rude, and skullduggery, of friendships the poems in Thirty Days’ Notice have made and betrayed, set against the their origins in the everyday, drop- heat and dust of a lost Empire. ping in on backyards and beaches, train stations and airports, cafes and kitchens, provoked by photographs, books and letters, relationships and solitude, an undead Catholic child- hood and the pangs and pleasures of motherhood as they ponder what a Mirror You and Me: Our Place life of days might add up to. Jeannie Baker Leonie Norrington & Dee Huxley Walker Hardback Working Title Press

This innovative picture book com- Every morning Uncle Tobias goes prises two stories designed to be read fishing. Sometimes he is joined by The Bad Boy’s Guide to the simultaneously one from the left, the two little boys. Together they spend Good Indian Girl other from the right. Page by page, we the day moving from one place to an- Annie Zaidi and Smriti Ravindra experience a day in the lives of two other—from the beach to the bridge, Zubaan boys and their families. An Austra- to the outskirts of the city. lian family, whose way of life strikes Who is the ‘Good Indian Girl’? What a familiar chord, and a family from a does she look like? How does she far away country with a way of life that dress? Is she real — or is she a myth? My Place differs more than one can imagine. In this funny, wicked, touching, ir- Nadia Wheatley & Donna Rawlins Winner of the Children s category reverent, poignant collection of sto- Walker Books Australia at the 2011 Indie Book Awards and ries, Annie Zaidi and Smriti Ravindra short-listed for NSW Premier’s Lit- lift the veil (or sari pallu) on the lives My Place, the classic Australian pic- erary Award. Mirror was also short and loves of girls who have been born ture book, is a ‘time machine’ which listed for both the Australian Book or raised in the subcontinent. These takes the reader back into the past. It Industry Awards (ABIA’s) for 2011 and stories will ring a bell with any wom- depicts the history of one particular the Western Australian Premier’s an who has negotiated the minefield piece of land in Sydney from 1788 to Book Awards for 2010 in the Chil- The Lilliputians of family love and romantic longing 1988 through the stories of the var- dren’s Books category. Kirsty Murray and desire that lies between child- ious children who have lived there. Young Zubaan hood and womanhood. My Place ultimately aims to show that everyone is part of History and MADRAS 1910: Poesy and Tilly are that every place has a story as old as caught in a scandal that will change the earth. their lives forever. Singing and danc- ing across a hundred stages as mem- bers of a troupe of Australian child performers, called The Lilliputians, they travel by steam train into the heart of India. But as one disaster fol- lows another, money runs short and tempers fray. Based on a real histor- ical incident, award-winning writer Kirsty Murray tells a tale of intrigue 45 The bookwallahs.

The Bookwallah is a project of the Asialink International Writing Program at the University of Melbourne. Asialink is Australia’s leading centre for the promotion of public understanding of the countries of Asia and of Australia’s role in the region.

The Asialink International Writing Program con- nects Australian writers, readers and publishers with their counterparts in Asia. We run immersive in-country residencies, author tours, collaborative Nic Low is a New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based Catriona Mitchell is a freelance literary events pro- cross-media projects, produce engaging books, and writer, artist and arts organiser. He is a former grammer and producer who has worked with the organise national and international events. You’ll director of the Australian National Young Writers Jaipur Literature Festival, India; the Ubud Writers find us everywhere from the lawn stage at the Jai- Festival, and is responsible for the international & Readers Festival, Bali; and the Melbourne Writers pur Literature Festival to the back alleys of Seoul, writing program at the University of Melbourne’s Festival and Melbourne International Film Festi- collaborating with collaborating with writers, pub- Asialink Institute. His recent fiction, essays and val, Australia. In 2009-2010 she collaborated with lishers, artists, architects and more. criticism have appeared in GriffithREVIEW , The Teamwork Productions, Delhi, while on an Asialink Lifted Brow, The Big Issue, Art Monthly and Austra- Arts Management Residency. Catriona regularly The Bookwallahs are Nic Low and Catriona Mitchell, lian Book Review. He received the 2011 GREW Prize writes magazine features on arts and the environ- leading their band of authors across India. for non-fiction, and was short-listed for the 2012 ment and has an M Phil in Creative Writing from Commonwealth Short Story Prize. As an artist Nic Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. has received commissions to create video, sound and installation work for festivals around Austra- lia. Find him at www.dislocated.org

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