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y separately published work icon Peacemongers single work   prose  
Issue Details: First known date: 2014... 2014 Peacemongers
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A literary masterpiece of both astounding intellect and brutal personal honesty

'In his first major prose work since 2002's Broken Song, Barry Hill has written an epic – a travel book, a history book, a peace book. His odyssey begins with a pilgrimage to Bodhi Gaya in India, where the Buddha received enlightenment and ends after he reaches Nagasaki, Japan, in the aftermath of its atomic bomb.

'His travelling is imbued with the life and ideas of Indian's greatest artist and intellectual, Rabindranath Tagore, along with that of MK Gandhi. Hill then travels, like Tagore, in Japan, and meditates on its militarist turn, its warmongering Buddhism and the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, with its riddled post-colonial legacy. He goes to Zen temples, secret islands, and into some of the recesses of Japanese history, all the while musing on his own capacity for inner-disarmament. Hill also has his late father with him, a union man and Australian peace activist, whose dated left-humanism may not be enough for the wars and ruins the West has recently created.

'The discourse of this incredible work – poetic, mobile, ambivalent – seeks to be an antidote to the political impotence of progressive thought over the last decade. But Peacemongers does not peddle hope, and when it sights hope it tends to be as an epiphany, as it was with Tagore.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: for Philip Huggins

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

The Surveyed Vision : 36 Meditations on 3 Books by Barry Hill (Peacemongers, Grass Hut Work and Reason & Lovelessness) Javant Biarujia , 2020 single work essay
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , October no. 97 and 98 2020;
In Search of the Buddha Gerry Simpson , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Arena Magazine , June-July no. 136 2015; (p. 36-38)

— Review of Peacemongers Barry Hill , 2014 single work prose
A Mystery Tour That Aims to Give Peace a Chance Stuart Rees , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 14-15 February 2015; (p. 35) The Age , 14 February 2015; (p. 29)

— Review of Peacemongers Barry Hill , 2014 single work prose
Poet’s Quest for Enlightenment Ross Fitzgerald , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 15-16 November 2014; (p. 19)

— Review of Peacemongers Barry Hill , 2014 single work prose
Poet’s Quest for Enlightenment Ross Fitzgerald , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 15-16 November 2014; (p. 19)

— Review of Peacemongers Barry Hill , 2014 single work prose
A Mystery Tour That Aims to Give Peace a Chance Stuart Rees , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 14-15 February 2015; (p. 35) The Age , 14 February 2015; (p. 29)

— Review of Peacemongers Barry Hill , 2014 single work prose
In Search of the Buddha Gerry Simpson , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Arena Magazine , June-July no. 136 2015; (p. 36-38)

— Review of Peacemongers Barry Hill , 2014 single work prose
The Surveyed Vision : 36 Meditations on 3 Books by Barry Hill (Peacemongers, Grass Hut Work and Reason & Lovelessness) Javant Biarujia , 2020 single work essay
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , October no. 97 and 98 2020;
Last amended 19 Feb 2015 10:28:50
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    India,
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    South Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
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    Japan,
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    East Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
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