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Charlotte Badger became the first white woman to live in New Zealand, after taking part in a mutiny which followed two vicious floggings on board a civilian cargo ship. This novel recreates the adventurous life of this remarkable woman fugitive, her daughter, and their fellow mutineers. Escaping from Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales after commandeering the colonial brig, the Venus, the mutineers settle for an initially peaceful life with the Maoris in New Zealand. But simmering tensions within their group eventually burst into the open. The peace is shattered and escape to America is the only chance of survival. But how many will reach America? This is Charlotte's story, telling the reader in her own voice, the shock of being condemned to transportation, the drudgery of work in the Female Factory, the delight of little Anny, the baby at her breast, and the companionship of fellow convicts and the crew of the Venus, relaxing in the evening, singing on deck en route to Van Diemen's Land. Charlotte tells also of the cruel master of the Venus, who delighted in flogging Charlotte and her Irish friend and fellow convict, Kitty; of the terror of a wild storm at sea; escaping from the Maori war canoes, and the antagonism that builds up among the mutineers. This is a story of courage, of determination and a mother's love for her child.

This book brings to life for many Australians, the close connection between Australia and East Timor. In 1941-42, Archie Campbell was a lieutenant in the 'Sparrow Force' the 300 men of the 2/2nd Independent Company in a 14-month campaign of ambushes and hit-and-run tactics which effectively pinned down more than 15,000 Japanese troops in East Timor. This book recounts the bloodless Australian landing in Portuguese East Timor, military actions against the Japanese, and eventual evacuation to Darwin. Central to Campbell's experience is the ambush and execution of a section from his platoon, shortly after the Japanese landing in Dili. In 1973, Archie returned to East Timor to meet Barana, the East Timorese man who, as a 12-year-old boy, helped and protected him during the campaign. Each Timorese boy who helped a commando and guarded him while he slept, was called that commando's criado. Ken White accompanied Archie in the 1973 journey to East Timor to find Barana. He has used excerpts from Archie's own diary to tell the heart-warming story of their first meeting after 30 years. Historical background on the centuries of Portuguese rule, the Japanese occupation and the more recent Indonesian invasion and incorporation add to the value of this book as another chapter in the Australia-East Timor story.

After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Niqi Thomas, a young Czech Australian woman, returns with her father to Prague, to visit her ancestral city and to discover her grandfather, who was always 'present' in the family, but whom she had never met -- Karel Goliath-Gorovsky, the Czech Solzhenitsyn. For Niqi, it became a journey of self-discovery, through discovery of her grandfather. A rebel from birth, Czech lawyer, Karel Goliath-Gorovsky, was imprisoned in a Soviet gulag north of the Arctic Circle, because of his relentless political idealism. His potent black humour enabled him to survive those seventeen darkest years of his political life, which spanned from the brutal excesses of Stalin to the liberating hope of Dubcek. His son, abandoned by his father at the age of one, developed his own black humour to survive Mischling status under the Nazi occupation, the Stalinist regime in his homeland, Czechoslovakia, and flight to Australia -- his new land of opportunity where some people crossed the street when they saw a 'wog' approaching. This family narrative includes a subversive retake on the biblical Goliath, who appears several times through the book, connecting Goliath-Gorovsky with the biblical character, who paradoxically, was killed by his Hebrew ancestors. This is a literary treatment of national and personal history, which explores the effect of war and displacement upon the exiled individuals and their families. Throughout the book, the continually reinforced image is of the individual standing against the juggernaut of dictatorship and bureaucracy, and resolutely refusing to fear.

Set in Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia, Snake is the first novel that Dewi Anggraeni has written about the Chinese descent communities in Southeast Asia. Their stories, woven into the tapestry of the mainstream Malay societies of Malaysia and Indonesia, have not only contributed to the respective society and national culture. They have also moulded the Southeast Asian overseas Chinese into a fascinating society in their own right. In common with Dewi's earlier novels, Snake presents us with an intangible, even mysterious, part of Southeast Asian life. While effective curses, and the power inanimate objects can have over people -- power for good or power for evil -- are generally considered in Australia to be fantasy, they are very much a part of life in Southeast Asia. In 'Snake', a brooch worn as a clasp for the traditional blouse, the kebaya, has power over its owner. Featuring Serena, a choreographer and lead dancer, this is the story of a family split by honour and pride, a family under the curse of a beautiful brooch. The brooch, named peniti ronce by its first owner, initially fascinates, and then destroys, its owner.

Fiona Hindmarsh, a successful middle-aged economist, likes to live her life her way. Beginning the love-of-her-life affair with the gorgeous Laine Macready, a girl who wears a Hardie Aimes shirt like no one else can, she is interrupted by a phone call. Her sister, Gillian, brings her the news that their mother, Muriel, had a heart attack at the top of a plum tree she was pruning and died. Irritably Fi sets off on a night-time drive home to help Gillian organise the funeral. What precisely is home for Fi? Where her mother lived in Northern New South Wales, among the tea-drinking relatives who, as Gillian reminds her, made Fi what she is today? Is home the girl of the moment who happens to make her heart miss a beat? Or is home merely one of the houses Fi has bought in Australia or leased in Bali? Fi is contrary, her head and her heart responding to different music. And as a child, Fi was sensitive to the ghostly spirits of the Bundjalung who inhabited the land the Hindmarshes and the Darks took over for dairy farms. How does she reconcile the mutterings and wailings and chantings she hears in her heart with the classic cinema sound booming in her head and the skin-smarting indignity of betrayal? A novel combining a love story with a perspective on the farmers' settlement history of the Far North Coast of New South Wales, that grew with new grass on old rainforest soil.

Set in the summer and autumn of 1938, "Body and Soul" is eighteen-year-old disabled Lilbet Marks' very biased account of the love affair between Felix Goldfarb, a recent migrant from Hitler's Germany, and Lilbet's twin sister Ella. Lilbet adores Ella, but also envies her beauty and for her ability to dazzle men. Lilbet's father Simon Marks, her eldest sister Julie, and all their friends are entranced by Felix Goldfarb's winning blend of worldly sophistication and boyish charm. Only bookish Lilbet suspects Felix might not be all that he seems. Also, it is imperative for her physical and psychological wellbeing that Ella remains at the family home. She is determined never to be parted from her twin. Within a few months, Felix departs, leaving behind gigantic gambling debts and Ella pregnant. Though he subsequently sends for Ella, Lilbet manages through clever manipulation to keep her twin by her side. As Lilbet records the day to day events at home, her newspaper cuttings and notes explore 1938 attitudes in general, the intolerance shown at the time towards the disabled, the ambivalence she feels towards her family, her insecurities, fear of loneliness and the double-edged sword of love and envy. Though it is a young woman's musings, the voice is appropriate to the times in which she lived. Among the press clippings, the unconfirmed reports coming out of Hitler's Germany of anti-Jewish violence and disappearances of whole Jewish communities, and the increasing belligerence of Germany towards her neighbours add to the growing tension for this Jewish family in Melbourne of the 1930s.

When Maryati leaves her village in Central Java to live in Melbourne with her Australian husband Trevor, she suffers the intense pain of separation from her baby son. She soon realises that Trevor would never be able to accept that his innocent Maryati already had a son from an earlier casual liaison. In Melbourne, Eni, also from Indonesia, becomes Maryati's personal support system. Eni is so successful, so sophisticated, fitting comfortably into the professional community surrounding her lover, Alex and his brother, Simon. Their friendship matures as their circumstances change. Maryati experiences personal breakdown as her marriage collapses under the weight of Trevor's intransigence. Reunion with her son is the start of her recovery, a full recovery in which she becomes the sophisticated, successful woman of her village. The roles are reversed in the women's friendship as Eni's relationship with Alex leads to her becoming victim to an act of sorcery. It is only through Maryati that she is rescued from the satanic garden into which she has been cast. This novel carries all the emotional and cultural interplay that has become Dewi Anggraeni's trademark.

This is a fictional account of a young Chinese English teacher, nicknamed Moby, and his older Australian friend, retired journalist, Wilson. Their story begins in Sydney in 1986, when Moby is billetted at Wilson's house, and ends in Beijing in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Moby's understanding of the Australian, and particularly the Chinese-Australian, way of life slowly develops during his year in Sydney, refining his skills as an English teacher. His own family life in Beijing is presented by way of letters from his wife, who anxiously awaits the birth of her brother's first child. Her fears of how her brother would react if the child is a girl, become a reality. The personal tragedies caused by the one-child policy make a disconcerting continuity with the family tragedies resultant from the Cultural Revolution. Interwoven into their adventures and misadventures in Sydney and Beijing are analysis and commentary provided by the 16th century Chinese scholar, Wu Cheng-en and the heroes of his epic Journey to the West. Scholar Wu, who is cast as the narrator of Tigers, uses classical Chinese folk stories and legends to illustrate moral principles and cultural behaviours which are challenged by the circumstances in which Moby and Wilson find themselves. Wu Cheng-en's heroes -- the priest Tripitaka and his companions -- argue the merits of how Moby, Wilson and the people among whom they live and work in Sydney and Beijing live out their roles.

Jill Blee's second novel is at once a travel story and an historical novel set in modern Ireland, where Jill's first visit to her ancestral homeland is hijacked by the very real presence of her long-dead great aunt, Brigid. While Jill intends to acquaint herself with the country, the people and the history from which her great-grandparents had migrated, Aunt Brigid single-mindedly steers her back to the wind swept cliffs of County Clare, and the high Burren above the village of Ballyvaghan. Brigid has some unfinished business which quickly becomes Jill's main quest, through which she is brought into a much deeper experience of the great famine than her history books could ever give her. As she follows her aunt's story on the west coast and back to Dublin, Jill's own travel story, complete with Lonely Planet Guide, Irish pubs and Norman ruins, is told with an intense imagery which presents Ireland in her beauty and her romance as clearly as could any cinematographer. Jill Blee is first and foremost an historian, but one who uses fiction to illuminate the past. What Brigid does best is to cast light on what the experience of the famine in a small community, Ballyvaghan, meant in emotional terms for those experiencing it. This is a compassionate novel, well-researched, a compelling read if one has an interest in what is quite recent history, a history which threatens to repeat itself in the modern world.

Valerie Kirwan's sharp observation and sharper wit presents us with these four cameos of love loved and love lost in the last decades of the twentieth century. Local stories with universal themes, the novellas reflect the emotional roller coaster of the century of alienation. 'And Then There Were the Good Nights' is a novella about love, friendship and good times over two decades 1974 to 1994 which focuses on a small group of friends whose lives revolve around theatre and their relationships. 'In the Cold Morning Light' is a mystery thriller and a story of elusive love. When Aysin returns alone to Charles's isolated house without Bebe, her lover, she becomes obsessed with questions about Bebe's fate and Charles's role in her disappearance. 'Michael' is a story of illusory love which portrays a domineering mother through the eyes of Anna, her son's girlfriend. Domination and alienation mark the bleak days spent at Michael's mother's house, days that culminate in Anna's losing Michael as he withdraws into a new identity, which allows her no place in his life. 'Mrs Wedge's Waterford and a Crate of Champagne' is a black comedy about life without love -- Lou Wedge's story of coping with her irascible ailing mother and her own frustrated loneliness.

In the autumn of 1870, Nikolai Miklouho Maclay, a young marine biologist, left his home in St Petersburg to travel to the remote territory of New Guinea. It was the start of an adventure that was to test his courage and determination and force him to examine the ideals that had inspired his quest for a people not yet spoiled by European civilisation. A beautifully told adventure story and a fascinating reconstruction of Maclay's own account of his efforts to survive, the book follows him from his home in Russia into the jungles of New Guinea and the sophisticated Vice-Regal circles of the Dutch East Indies -- a journey that would see him mistaken for a god and enshrined as a legend. Maclay's great courage and impetuous character inspired much of what has been written about his life and work. He was also a man of great personal charm and integrity, succeeding as well with Papuan warriors as he did with people of the highest rank in government and empire. In his choice of New Guinea as the primary area for his anthropological studies, Maclay was searching for nothing less than the 'probable cradle of the human race'. While he did not subscribe to the theory of the 'noble savage', Maclay longed to discover, somewhere in the steamy jungles of this racially unique island, an innocence and purity long departed from the 'civilisation' of the Europeans. His hopes and dreams, his triumphs and failures make up this fictional account of Maclay's time in New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies.

The news of her sick father beckons Komala to return to Jakarta, leaving her husband and children behind in Melbourne, now her home city. But the Jakarta she left nine years earlier has changed. The city has changed and the society is disturbingly foreign to her. Or has she changed? Komala's is a poignant homecoming to a troubled land. Komala's return even to her family home is difficult, with live-in boarders and her hostile sister in law disturbing her smooth transition back to the place of her childhood. Through one of her mother's boarders, Komala learns of a vicious attack on a night-club hostess, an acid attack which leaves the young woman blinded and horribly scarred. In her attempt to win some justice and compensation for the victim, Komala becomes aware of a wider world of corruption and exploitation, particularly of women. This exploitation is made worse by the lack of solidarity among the women in Jakarta. The society is still one where man are supreme, and the women acquiesce in this, allowing themselves to be dependent on a husband or lover, thereby allowing men to retain control. This is a novel as relevant today as when first released. The path for women's liberation in many South East Asian countries still hinges very much on how women themselves view the woman who dares to declare her independence in the male-dominated society.

This is the story of a unique family, centred on Amyrra, one of twin sisters. Amyrra's story is set mainly in modern Australia but also in ancient Java. Her life parallels the life of a queen, Ken Dedes, in the Golden Age of a Javanese kingdom. Amyrra seeks refuge in a personal God to free herself from her fate to love and suffer again, as she believes she had so many centuries earlier. The story opens with the adult sisters attending a wedding in suburban Camberwell, then quickly flashes back to childhood in Singapore. They were born in Singapore, where their Javanese father, Hardoyo, a poet and their French mother, Claudine, an artist, lived for ten years. Moving to Indonesia when the girls were just teen-age, the family is shocked when a village seer tells Amyrra that she is the present incarnation of the twelfth century Javanese queen, Ken Dedes, and that she will meet the present incarnation of the queen's lover, Ken Arok, and they will resume their love affair. During the Golden Age of the Majapahit kingdom, Ken Dedes married her lover, Ken Arok, after he had killed her husband, the king. Their relationship ended unhappily and their descendants have fought and killed each other for generations after. Despite her obsession to avoid meeting her fated lover, Amyrra finally meets Sean Devlin, who she feels she has known for a long time. From then on, her life parallels the life of Ken Dedes, as she is swept toward the horrifying end.

A journey through yoga from the yoga schools of Australia to the ancient origins in the Indus River Valley, 4500 years ago. The development of yoga in the ancient texts and practices of India is interwoven with its migration to the West. Dr Bilimoria takes the reader through the therapeutic aspects of yoga to the philosophical traditions in India. He completes the work with a critical review of yoga as practised in Western society generally, but with emphasis on the Australian experience. The introduction to the therapeutic value and ethical considerations of yoga bring the reader to the search for a guru, where Dr Bilimoria offers his advice concerning some precautions to take, to avoid questionable practitioners.

Stories of Indian Pacific are three novellas, set in New Caledonia, Australia and Indonesia, written in Dewi Anggraeni's engaging style that moves easily from one location to the next. 'To Drown a Cat' explores racial tension in New Caledonia; Uncertain Step is the story of an Indonesian bride in Australia; and in Crossroads two artists, an Australian and an Indonesian, meet in Bali. The novella is set in 1988, shortly after the violent confrontation between the French army and Kanak separists in the northern island of Ouvea. The story explores the tensions that explode in bloody confrontation, within a family divided by allegiance to two sets of ancestors, the French Caldoche and the indigenous Kanak. 'Uncertain Step' tells the story of Aryani, and her relatively late marriage to Steve, an Australian teacher who already has two children, and is still good friends with his previous wife. Aryani finds the Australian scenery, Steve's hometown, Adelaide and people's response to herself very different from everything she is used to in Bandung. Her uncertain step into marriage with this warm but almost unknown Australian is the story of so many Asian brides and their Australian husbands. In 'Crossroads', the young Australian rock singer, Justin is introduced to a new world of art and life, when he meets the Balinese poet and playwright, Nyoman. Justin sees for the first time, art as close to nature and art as important for political and social change.

An awakening... two occupied homelands... a young woman's personal growth. Melati's journey took her from a cloistered Swiss boarding school to the guerrilla camps of a scorched earth. Her own personal growth from a naive school girl to an independent young woman closely parallels the struggle for independence of her reclaimed homeland. Harumi Wanasita tells the story of one woman. She also tells the story of a generation. The Dutch-Indonesian descent people at the time of Indonesia's declaration of independence were the last generation of their culture. This is their story. Reflecting the maturing of her character, Harumi varies her writing style as Melati develops. Naive at first for Melati's wide-eyed innocence, the style is gradually refined as the novel moves through wartime Holland and Melati's life with the guerrilla fighters in revolutionary Indonesia. Through all the experiences which make Melati's story, Harumi retains a language and style reminiscent of an earlier simpler time, when innocence was its own reward.

This is a novel set in China, a personal account of the turbulent years of Mao's continuous revolution, including the social and political upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. This is a Chinese story which brings to life the suffering, the adventure, the crushing losses, the unvanquished idealism of the otherwise anonymous heroes and heroines of China's post-war period. The novel tells the story of Mo Bing, from her under-cover work in Shanghai as a Communist Party cadre during the Civil War, through her denunciation and fall from grace during the Cultural Revolution to her rehabilitation and retirement in the early 1990s. Significant parts of the story include the experience of Mo Bing's husband as a soldier and prisoner of war during the Korean War. The Cultural Revolution, and the Red Guard movement feature strongly through Mo Bing and her son. Life can never be exactly the same for Mo Bing and millions of her compatriots when Marshal Lin Biao, Mao's 'closest comrade-in-arms' flees after being accused of attempting to assassinate Mao. Shaken by the Cultural Revolution, as were many of her generation, Mo Bing develops as a survivor, her survival based on faith in herself, her undying idealism and her personal integrity. Trevor Hay and Fang Xiangshu continue their collaboration, building onto their earlier introduction of a distinctly Chinese aesthetic style into Australian literature.

A collection of essays, written over the last ten years by Robyn Ferrell, who is now Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania. This collection is for the general reader as well as the academic and student. In The Real Desire, the lenses of art, philosophy, sensuality, and the dreamscape invite us to explore the many guises of desire. A childhood interwoven with Aboriginal history, the banalities of buying real estate, discussion of lingerie, writers and writing, and feminist analysis of some of the great philosophers of the past. Robyn Ferrell has brought together in one volume: essays of discovery -- Pinjarra 1970; rites of passage -- Kingdom of God and Feminine Arts; disillusionment -- Paris Does Not Exist; and critical analysis -- Hemingway's Typewriter and Real Desire. Robyn combines the clarity of journalistic prose with the rigor of academic analysis. These essays are written for general interest as well as academic investigation.

The so-called mail order bride phenomenon developed to fill the needs of lonely men, particularly in regional Australia. But the marriages did not always work out. Nilanthi was such a bride. The youngest of five daughters in a family where status was higher than income, her parents had difficulty providing a dowry large enough to attract a suitably well-to-do husband. Believing all Westerners were rich, she chose to take her chances with a farmer in faraway Australia. When she goes missing, however, a Sydney history teacher called Laura sets about finding the young woman.

From his boyhood in Germany, toward the end of World War II, to his settlement in Australia (the land of the beautiful enemy'), Mark grows through his experience of illness and the premature death of people close to him. As a young man, successful at university, he still must confront death among his friends as he steps into the independence of his maturity.

Did Candy want to be found with heroin in her baggage at Bangkok airport? Or is she just another Western drug trafficker caught by the Thai authorities? Will her brother and uncle be able to bring her home? Six main characters, each with a different take on the same story. Whose story will remain after the killings?

A dark and mysterious novel set in the early 1800s. Molly and Alice McPhee visit Captain Walden, in his isolated country home. When Walden is called away on duty, he leaves his convict manservant, Halls, in charge. When he returns, Halls and the ladies have gone. The indigenous Dharawal -- the Water People -- offer their explanation of what happened before Molly and Alice were swallowed up by the earth.

Are Arb and Henry different aspects of the same personality? Or do they just share the same madness, as they travel full circle but always contained by a single repressed room -- from the childhood cupboard and dollhouse, through the clerk's office, to the brothel and the room of red curtains, and finally out into the countryside at the Lindesfarne rest home? Exploration of a mad imagination, unusual and captivating.

A collection of stories behind the news, collected over many years as a senior journalist in Darwen. Ken White throws a new light on news stories -- including some which were covered in the national press -- and captures the special feeling of the Top End, enjoyed by all who live in the Northern Territory, and fascinating to all who visit there.

On 12 October 2002, Bali seemed to crumble overnight, when hundreds of tourists and locals who were enjoying themselves became victims of two horrific bomb blasts. The bombs took the lives of 202 people -- 88 of whom were Australians, and severely injured many more. The Bali bombing brought Australians closer to the terror which has dominated world headlines for over a year. This book presents a comprehensive summary of the event, the investigation and the main perpetrators. Dewi's work as an Indonesian journalist in Australia puts her in a unique position to observe and understand how the tragedy of the Bali bombing has played out in Australia, Bali and elsewhere in Indonesia. Indonesians and foreign observers alike have been pondering whether 'Indonesian Islam' remains as moderate, liberal and tolerant as many had believed. Part of this book is about Dewi's own journey through this pondering. Includes: Map of Eastern Indonesia; Plan of Kuta, showing Sari Club and Paddy's Bar; four colour plates of Kuta and the main perpetrators of the bombing.

Published to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Catholic Education in the Diocese of Ballarat, this book presents the history of the Catholic education system in the Diocese from early settlement to the present day. It also provides particular insight into the history of settlement by a large proportion of the early population of western Victoria. The history traces the development of the Catholic school system, achieved through the collaboration of bishops and priests, members of religious orders and the laity. The passing years brought new opportunities and new challenges, which were met with the same cooperative effort, so necessary in the early days of development and which ensures that Catholic education continues to flourish throughout the Diocese. While the overall picture presented is one of success through hard work, this transparent well-researched history also presents the pitfalls and disappointments, the disputes and failures, which are only to be expected in such a challenging enterprise.

In 1956 Lydia is alone with her frustration which she acts out aggressively with her children. Forty years on, her children suffer serious depression. Jacq goes to therapy and then leaves for Penang. Kel drinks and plays his mothers signature tune, 'Blue Moon'. In 1998 the therapist steps in where community once gave support. But are the desperate helped?

This is a novel of friendship, love and corruption. Set in Brisbane during the disastrous 1974 flood, two very different men, the immunologist Mark and the charismatic 'Prince of Spice' Sannes, struggle for the affection of the feisty, fiercely independent lawyer Jessica. In a highly charged, profoundly disturbing relationship, betrayal of friendship and violation of love interact and collide with the ever-increasing moral deterioration of the 'Moonlight State'. Jurgensen's novel depicts evil as a seductively demonic power of rampant decomposition, generating from the realm of personal intimacy to the corruption of civilised society. Its narrative of power and passion takes the reader on a frightening journey, culminating in the apparition of a predatory God. Residing in the eyes of the tiger are the violent beauty and terrible knowledge of an irredeemable love.

While Rose was looking forward to celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary, her husband, Lewis, remained cold and detached, his manner increasingly distant from the entire family. Rose knew that Lewis carried his wartime experiences deep within -- experiences he chose not to share. But there always seemed to be an even deeper secret, something more personal. The opening chapter fills the reader with a sense of foreboding that is not softened by the excellent and evocative imagery throughout this novel of a family farming in southern Tasmania in the 1960s. 'Worm in the Bud' -- set in the farmlands of southern Tasmania -- will appeal to readers of family stories, based on the relationships within the family, with the intrigues between siblings, and the ups and downs of their romantic affairs forming the background to the family's struggle to survive the personal and economic pressures which threaten their survival as a family. This novel will appeal to readers who enjoy reconnecting with their own rural roots. People in rural districts will recognise the realism of June's ability to capture the atmosphere of farming in the 1960s, realism springing from her own farming background.