Trevor Hay Trevor Hay i(A6107 works by)
Born: Established: 1946 ;
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 y separately published work icon The Library of Lost Horizons : An Antiquarian Voyage Trevor Hay , North Melbourne : Australian Scholarly Publishing , 2023 26054327 2023 single work autobiography

'‘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)

1 y separately published work icon The Tengu: Tales From the Temple of Ordinary Terrors Trevor Hay , North Melbourne : Tantanoola , 2020 19523935 2020 single work novel 'In 2019 Roy, a retired librarian living alone in dwindling bushland on the outskirts of Melbourne, is lured out of his shell by his neighbours, two migrant Chinese families who run a motel and restaurant. With other neighbours and guests, they get together regularly for Friday Chinese banquets, retiring for after-dinner ghost stories to an old Presbyterian church among the gums behind the restaurant – ‘The Temple of Ordinary Terrors’.

'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)

1 y separately published work icon Redgrave's Ghost Trevor Hay , Melbourne : Tantanoola , 2019 16749962 2019 single work novel

'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.

1 y separately published work icon The Secret of the Lunar Rainbow Trevor Hay , Melbourne : Australian Scholarly Publishing , 2018 14157142 2018 single work novel

'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.

1 y separately published work icon Letters from a Floating Life Trevor Hay , North Melbourne : Tantanoola , 2017 10934586 2017 single work novel

'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)

1 y separately published work icon A Dream of Red Dragonflies Trevor Hay , North Melbourne : Tantanoola , 2016 10186446 2016 single work novel fantasy

'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)

1 The Portrait of Decima Trevor Hay , 1998 single work short story
— Appears in: Australian Multicultural Book Review , vol. 5 no. 3 1998; (p. 22-28)
1 1 Authors Real, Not `Nominal' Trevor Hay , Xiangshu Fang , 1998 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 21 March 1998; (p. 26)
1 5 y separately published work icon Black Ice : A Story of Modern China Trevor Hay , Xiangshu Fang , Eltham North : Indra Publishing , 1997 Z10314 1997 single work novel historical fiction Black Ice tells the story of Mo Bing, from her underground work in Shanghai as a Communist Party cadre during the Civic War, through denunciation in the Cultural Revolution to rehabilitation and retirement in the 1990s. This fictionalised account of the life of a Communist revolutionary explores the themes of contending loyalties, unrealised relationships, and bitter political ironies experienced during the turbulent years of Mao's China.
1 Some Desolate Shade Trevor Hay , 1995 single work short story
— Appears in: Eureka Street , October vol. 5 no. 8 1995; (p. 42-44)
1 Snow Willow Trevor Hay , 1995 single work short story
— Appears in: Eureka Street , January-February vol. 5 no. 1 1995; (p. 35-37)
1 form y separately published work icon Reading Tartar City Woman Tartar City Woman Virginia Baxter , Trevor Hay , Keith Gallasch , 1994 Z854191 1994 single work drama radio play
1 The Other Woman at Home Trevor Hay , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , April vol. 4 no. 3 1994; (p. 43-44)

— Review of Maidenhome Ding Xiaoqi , 1993 selected work short story
1 The Cat, the Goose and the Educated Youth Shen Chen , Trevor Hay , 1993-1994 single work short story
— Appears in: Eureka Street , December -January vol. 3 no. 10 1993-1994; (p. 34-36)
1 Don't Pick a Carpenter Trevor Hay , 1992 single work short story
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 143 1992; (p. 25-26)
1 7 y separately published work icon East Wind, West Wind Xiangshu Fang , Trevor Hay , Ringwood : Penguin , 1992 Z827147 1992 single work autobiography This account of the life of the author portrays both the uncertainty of life under a totalitarian government and the difficulties of exercising individual rights when under official scrutiny, even in a non-authoritarain society such as Australia.
1 y separately published work icon Tartar City Woman : Scenes From the Life of Wang Hsin-Ping, Former Citizen of China Trevor Hay , Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 1990 Z1023562 1990 single work biography Wang Hsin-ping grew up among the scholar-gentry families of old Peking. When the People's Republic was established in 1949, she was twelve years old. After becoming a teacher she was investigated as a "counter-revolutionary" during the Cultural Revolution, and now lives in Melbourne.
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