Cirrus@Austlit

'A hauntingly beautiful love story about the ties that bind from awardwinning author, Simone Lazaroo.

'Elspeth is full of inexpressible longings- to leave behind her beginnings in a small wheatbelt town, and a secret she scarcely comprehends. After migrating from Singapore, Francis just wants to make a life for himself that is not determined by the colour of his skin or the judgement of others.

'Told by their only child, Eva, this is a novel about falling in love, and falling apart - the beautiful, sad story of a shared history that never ends.'  (Publication summary)

'This article draws on my own and some of my family’s search for home and belonging, exploring links between these experiences and the development of characters in my novels and short stories, mostly as migrants seeking meaning and identity at the intersection of cultures. I draw on my own cultural background of migration from Singapore to Australia with my Anglo-Australian mother and with my Eurasian father, whose lineage includes family from Malacca and Singapore descended from 16th century Portuguese seafarers’ partnerships with Malay women. I will occasionally refer to aspects of the “Kristang” culture, the name for Eurasians descended from those partner-ships; and to my father and his siblings’ and parents’ lives in Singapore during British colonial occupation and since.' (Publication summary)

'In this essay, I seek to explore the ways in which personal observations and experiences of Indigenous Australians throughout my life as a Singaporean Eurasian migrant in Western Australia, from the mid-1960s to the present, informed and complicated both my sense of belonging and my writing of novels and short stories. As such, this is a mostly anecdotal and autobiographical account. It includes reflections on my encounters with Indigenous Australians as a child and as an adult, the latter during my employment as a teacher and photographer of Aboriginal people, and during my friendship with an Aboriginal family. As a Eurasian Australian writer, I explore afresh aspects of some ‘stories’ I have made and the history that has made me, to raise questions about how to rethink difference and belonging.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The art of recreating cities imaginatively and the critical act of reading urban fiction involve processes of research and learning that often include encounters with specific cities and their dwellers, prompting reflection on the forms and ethics of such encounters. Whether carrying out historical research into the past or observation of the rapid transformation of contemporary cities, writers and critics often combine the acquisition of documentary and experiential knowledge of urban spaces. Taking two different categories of writing by Simone Lazaroo, on the one hand her texts on past relations between Singapore and Australia, and on the other her current stories on global cities after the Great Financial Crisis, we explore the processes of learning before and through representation, and the ethics of human interaction in the contact zone of the global urban where, increasingly, the world’s expelled have become street-dwellers.'

Source: Abstract.

'Ruth Joiner's short life has not run smoothly: opportunities have fallen through the cracks at every turn. The exception is creating her daughter, Dewi, and when we meet these two at the end of Ruth's life it is Ruth's calm demeanour and care that makes us confident that Dewi's future will be happier and carry more opportunity and joy. Orphaned in Bali and raised by her adoptive parents in the Australian desert, as a young woman Ruth escaped to the small town of Lost River. Her life has been marked by hardship, heartbreak, and loss, and defined by racism, illness, and her relationships with an enigmatic man named David and her young daughter Dewi. Yet against all odds, she ultimately finds peace with her family, her past, and herself. Set in Western Australia, Lost River: Four Albums is a novella of dislocation and loss, and continues Simone Lazaroo's interest in connections between Australian and South-East Asian lives.' (Publication abstract)