AustLit

'In a small café in London a teenager, Ruth, and elderly artist, Harry, recognise something profound in each other. They strike up a conversation that leads to regular meetings and takes them on a journey through their memories of traumatic times. Harry has much to tell about his childhood beside the Canal St Martin in Paris. Ruth has collected stories about her mother’s childhood in the Yorkshire Dales and London. How much has the stain of tragedy charged these memories with the pain of loss and what use can be made of the pain?

Looking back on her special years with Harry, Ruth sees how shared memories — happy or sad — can reshape the ways in which we value the lives of others while fully living our own. Taking Harry back to Paris draws on a special relationship that will shape her own place in the world.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The room rustled as the children looked around. They knew no one had been to the coast but they checked in case for liars, for the too-dumb to know the difference between the real world and the television, for the dreamers.

'A young boy yearns for a rabbit; a man battles for his father's love; a group of middle-class Australians find themselves in a newly renovated house; and an elderly refugee worries about his daughter's sea voyage. Seabirds Crying in the Harbour Dark is about seeking refuge, about how we define home and what makes us feel safe. The stories in this collection ask a simple question: what does it mean to live with compassion and kindness?' (Publication summary)

Written for the Reading Australia project, this essay serves as an introduction to Nam Le's The Boat. Cole discusses how the book 'offers a new conversation about the Vietnam War and its aftermath. The collection encompasses a diverse geography, from Iran to Colombia, the United States to Australia, Japan and the South China Sea, yet the Vietnam War is an assertive presence too in the collection’s first and last stories, "Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice" and "The Boat".' Cole discusses the 'literature of emigration,' gives a synopsis of each of the collection's stories, and examines the structural format of the collection.

'The notion of a ‘community of practice’ offers fruitful ways to frame and assess literary activities for the producers of literature, creative writers. Referring to Woody Allen's film Midnight in Paris (2011), the experiences of two Australian writers and the Australian Seven Writers’ community of practice, we discuss gaps that our research approach aims to fill through investigating the significance of specific writers’ literary relationships in developing their creative writing skills and work. Framing such relationships as professional ‘communities of practice’, we argue that studying the functions of contemporary writers’ relationships as working environments has the potential to inform both creative writing learning and arts policy-making. As such, advocating for a community-of-practice conceptual framework is the main aim.' (Publication summary)

The Perfume River offers the reader perspectives on Vietnam from both inside and outside the country. The diverse array of writers include renowned authors of the Vietnamese literary canon, 2nd generation ex-pats (based in Australia & America), and non-Vietnamese authors who have special ties with the country and its culture.

The only book of its kind on the market, The Perfume River is a collection of short stories and poetry. It explores a multitude of rich themes including origin, the rural/urban divide in Vietnam, family, generation gaps, lost love, the effects of war, migration, foreigner's impressions of Vietnam, the East/West divide, ex pats, Western attitudes to Vietnam and Asia, Vietnamese attitudes to the West and everyday life in Vietnam. There are 32 contributors, including Nam Le, Andrew Lam, Bao Ninh, Pham Thi Hoai and Pam Brown. [Publisher's media release]