Cirrus@Austlit

'In 1943 on Bougainville Island, New Guinea, a Japanese officer beheads Hugh Rand, an Australian spy—a coast watcher. Spectators at the execution include villagers Rand terrorised as his mind frayed under the stress of pursuit by Japanese soldiers and their hounds. Rand’s influence transcends his death. For decades he plagues people who strive to cope with him and one another in New Guinea, the Gilbert Islands, Australia and Japan. Who misperceives? Lies? Self-destructs? Suffers? Loves? The layers unfold through cultural, historical and intellectual curtains, deep into minds disturbed by the Pacific War and Hugh Rand’s legacy.' (Publication summary)

'In December 1950, the worst riots Singapore has ever seen shut down the town for days, killing 18 people and wounding 173. Racial and religious tension had been simmering for months over the custody battle for wartime waif Maria Hertogh between her Malay Muslim foster mother and her Dutch-Catholic biological parents. In May 1950, Eurasian Annie Collins, following this case and filled with hope, returns to Singapore seeking her own lost baby Maria. As the time bomb ticks and Annie unravels the threads of her quest into increasingly dangerous territory, she finds strange recollections intruding, ones that have nothing to do with her own memories of her wartime experiences: disturbing visions and dreams which force her to doubt not just her past life, but her whole idea of who she truly is and even to question the search itself. Finding Maria is at once a mother's quest for her child, an unravelling mystery and a journey into suppressed memory and the nature of self-delusion.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Finding Maria).

'This endearing 19th-century family saga follows the lives, loves and losses of one pioneering family and two escaped convicts as they open up the land in Victoria, Australia. This classic Australian story, which won the Hodder & Stoughton All Empire Literature Prize for Australasia, commands an important place in the canon of Australian literature' (Monsoon Books edition).