Cirrus@Austlit

'‘To begin with I saw Hilton’s tale of Shangri-La as an evocative fictional motif in the non-fictional tapestry of my collection, a metaphor for this journey in old books from Desert Cathay to The Land of Snows. Now I begin to see a different motif…it’s the missing sutra in the empty cave in the hole in the cliffside outside Dunhuang…’

'The author reflects on his own fifty-year voyage of discovery of Asia, culminating in a journey to far western China in 2018; to Dunhuang, the oasis town on the fringe of the Gobi and Lop deserts that for centuries gave access to the Silk Roads – and to the ‘Caves of a Thousand Buddhas’. These temple-caves once concealed the world’s oldest printed book, known as the Diamond Sutra, but as he contemplates the significance of the missing sutra and an empty cave, he finds himself confronted by the world’s oldest question.' (Publication summary)

'He records the passage of the year in a journal that includes notes from his intercultural story-telling group. He finds that mortals, and even some part- human, part-goblin beings, like the Japanese tengu, inhabit a zone somewhere between the terrors of the supernatural world, depicted in literature and art, and the ‘ordinary’ terrors of the natural, ‘real’ world.

'In the process Roy finds a special friend and ultimately exorcises the ghost of his own loneliness, which he has been inclined to idealise as solitude.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'Reclusive antiquarian bookseller Alan Redgrave meets Fei Yun, a beautiful and beguiling Chinese artist, at a gallery in the summer of 2018. She takes him to the ancient oasis town of Dunhuang, gateway to the Southern Silk Road. Her deep involvement with Taoist philosophy and ritual, including talismans, and her fascination with an eighteenth-century portrait lead him to wonder if there is something haunting her — or him.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Crystal, born in Nepal in tragic circumstances, comes to live with distant relatives in her own ‘Shangri-La’ by the Diamond Creek, on the outskirts of Melbourne. In a fabulous landscape of imaginings, where she learns both to confront horror and cherish mystery, she discovers ultimately that when the darkest of fears meets the brightest of hopes, it creates a rare kind of rainbow.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'One of my Buddhism for dummies books says there are three fires to be avoided at all costs — desire, anger and delusion. I think my greatest desire — and delusion — is to see a meaning in the events that have taken place in my life. There have been three occasions I can think of when I felt the siren call of Meaning, when I was convinced that things had happened as they were meant to — and each time I got it wrong.’

'In solitude, in a hotel in China, a man writes to a close friend, trying to identify themes in his life and relationships, revealed in the memory of sometimes funny, sometimes traumatic incidents and episodes. Intermittently he also writes of his present days in China, of the shifting persona he has adopted in order to lead a 'floating life' between worlds and identities.' (Publication summary)

'Restless China scholar Rubert Robinson leaves the refuge of his studio in Montsalvat artists' colony in outer Melbourne and embarks upon travels with Xiaorong, his former student, in order to discover and illuminate fragments of the age-old encounter between China and the West.

'During their quest through old and new worlds they discover a parallel realm of fascination, misunderstanding, pain and delight - all within their own relationship. Like other cultural voyagers before them, they find both sanctuary and exile within a landscape of ever shifting perspectives.' (Publication summary)