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Eyewitness Seno Gumira Ajidarma
Imprint ISBN 1 875892 27-3
144pp AU$14.95
Twelve stories and an introduction as
background briefing by Seno, an Indonesian journalist
who lost his position as editor of the magazine Jakarta
Jakarta, for authorising the coverage of the
1991 Dili massacre. Angry at the 'arrogance of power'
of the Indonesian authorities, Seno decided to record
the event by means of fiction, and these twelve strange
and unnerving stories resulted. Translated by Sydney
academic, Jan Lingard, these stories have not been available
in English before this award-winning publication.
A brave and confronting attempt to write
about a traumatic event in recent Indonesian history.
Seno believes that writing fiction makes it easier to
reveal the way power can disavow human rights, and in
his frank introduction he recounts the facts that prompted
his short stories. Jan Lingard, at Sydney University,
has met Seno and talked with him about the present situation
in Indonesia. Her knowledge of the country and its people
gives a quiet authority to her excellent translation
which won the 1997 Victorian Premier's Award.
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Tokyo No Hana - Robert Allen
Imprint ISBN 1 875892 13 3
128pp AU$14.95
Young Andrew Paton is transferred by
his company to Tokyo, and takes Japanese lessons to
help him learn about the new country and culture he
is entering -- somewhat reluctantly. His teacher, Nakajima,
teaches him more than he had at first bargained for.
A secret hedonist, Nakajima is an old woman who introduces
Andrew to the world of the Tokyo night people: the hostesses,
the entertainers and a network of Japanese people all
playing out the particular customs of their pleasure-seeking.
"This unusual first novel, the
title of which translates as The Flowers of Tokyo, is
a collection of anecdotes concentrating mainly on the
world of Tokyo's night people.
It paints a fascinating picture of Japanese
sexual mores in the 1960s from the point of view of
Andrew Paton, a young Australian stationed in Tokyo,
who is not shy to sample the sexual delights offered
by poised and practised bar hostesses." Maria
Trefely-Deutch, Sunday Telegraph.
"Allen has the easy tone of the
skilled raconteur, and his stories are gentle, yet knowing.
What he offers is a pleasant way of absorbing a little
of the essence of Japan." Diana Giese, Australian
Financial Review.
"It is a beautifully written, original
book that conveys a range of human emotions within the
framework of Japanese nightlife." Pamela
Ruskin Australian Jewish News
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Browning Without a Cause - Peter
Corris
Imprint Blacklist ISBN 1 875892 22 2
224pp AU$12.95
The eighth
-- and final -- Browning!!!
 Browning
is just about past it: out of work, off his horse, relying
on the income of his wife. But the game's not up yet,
and when Browning meets James Dean, and ends up on the
set of the surly kid's latest movie, along with Rock
Hudson and Liz Taylor, the movie's not the only thing
likely to be shot. Fast paced, droll as always, with
the bonus of movie nostalgia. From the moment James
Dean roars into the picture on his 'sickle', Browning
is in trouble, but the odd-couple allliance he and Dean
enter into so they can both get out of hot water, provides
the frame for the kind of action you can expect from
a Corris book. And it's the resolution of all Browning's
adventures, the final episode.
Peter Corris's characters, Browning
and Cliff Hardy, are without their match in Australian
writing. Following their lives is like trying to give
up a habit you've become very fond of. Why bother? Corris
is Sydney personified. Trained as a historian, literary
editor of the National Times for a time,
he is Australia's most popular crime writer, his own
admiration for the books of Raymond Chandler putting
him on the thriller path at an early age.
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Kangaroo - D.H. Lawrence
Imprint Classics ISBN 1 875892 14 1
432pp illustrated AU$19.95
D.H. Lawrence's controversially biting
description of Australia, written in 1922 during his
three-month visit. Kangaroo is the story
of Richard and Harriett Somers, who leave exhausted
post-war Europe in search of a new and freer world.
By the time the wandering Englishman and his wife leave
Australia, the novel has discovered hope in the spirit
of a tiny coastal village and the people who live there.
This is the new edition of Kangaroo holds
20 line drawings from Garry Shead's D.H. Lawrence series.
With an Introduction by Raymond Southall, author of
Literature and the Rise of Capitalism
and Literature, the Individual and Society,
Lawrence's 'Australian classic' is a beautiful addition
to the Lawrence canon.
On Our Selection - Steele Rudd
Imprint Classics ISBN 1 875892 33 8
256pp illustrated AU$14.95
The complete 1903 edition of the Australian
short story classic that has made Dad and Dave, the
Rudds of Queensland, part of our national mythology.
The humour is droll, the stories wonderfully understated,
and the pathos of the selector's life given all the
wisdom and humour it deserves. The publication of this
illustrated and fully restored edition of On Our
Selection coincides with the release of the
new film of Steele Rudd's stories. The introduction
by Philip Butterss from the University of Adelaide gives
all the background information to the story and shows
the way the humour works and why Dad and Dave have had
such lasting popularity.
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For Love Alone - Christina Stead
Imprint Classics ISBN 1 875892 59 1
AU$16.95
Christina Stead is regarded, along with Patrick
White, as one of the two most important writers Australia
has produced. Born in 1902, Stead spent her formative years
here, leaving in 1928 and returning in 1974 to live out her
last nine years. In the time between she lived and traveled
widely in Europe and America, with her husband, the novelist
and political economist, William Blake, and it was during
these decades that she wrote the series of novels that were
to make her name.
First published in 1945, this edition is introduced by Peter
Craven. Against a background of two cities, Sydney and London,
For Love Alone tells the story of the passionate
and independent Teresa Hawkins, who knows only one commandment
- Thou Shalt Love. Obsessed by love and a sense of her own
destiny, Teresa turns her back on suburban Sydney and sets
off for London, pursuing the self-seeking and contemptuous
Jonathon Crow. "Any man who has ever toyed with the
affections of a girl who was his superior will wince at the
scalpel-like treatment of male vanity." The fictional
character of Teresa has its origin in Stead's own early womanhood.
It is also a novel about being an Australian
colonial with a sense of the weight of culture.
Seven Poor Men of Sydney - Christina Stead
Imprint Classics ISBN 1 875892 60 5
AU$16.95
Here is Stead's first novel, originally published
in 1934. Poetic and impressionistic, the seven men of the
title are held together by bonds of friendship, love, poverty
and the tenuous associations of their city - in this case
Sydney, Australia. The characters' inner landscapes are as
tangible as the city while the narrative explores the material
and spiritual aspects of being in some sense 'poor', while
the novel examines how the inescapable physical facts and
remoteness of Australia from Europe affect the cultural and
political development of its inhabitants. With an evocative
introduction by Professor Margaret Harris, Stead's literary
executor.
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