Indra publishing

In Australian veterans’ magazine, Mufti, December 2007
Review by J R Bartram
Shadows of War, by Ryoko Adachi and Andrew McKay $(AU)27.95

This soft covered book of 250 pages is a genuine record of face-to-face interviews and thoughts of ex-POWs, loved ones and Veterans. The authors, both senior journalists (the former a Japanese), interviewed some 40 people who knew personally of events in fighting the Japanese in WWII and have direct contact with another 100. Some never thought they would tolerate having a Japanese in their homes – they will never forget or forgive the atrocities of the Japs.

The contrasting views are understandable and highlight the thought that the Japanese are still fighting the 100 year war – conquering by economic means – and some examples certainly make one think! Others spell out their hate with convincing reasoning. The lack of a formal apology to Australia will keep grievances alive.

***

As the Japanese keep dragging their feet on coming to terms with the terrors against Australia in the 1940s, such books can only assist in educating the young – both Japanese and Australian. An excellent read – buy a copy for the teenagers!

Recent books attacking religion have held the headlines. Now this book presents the beliefs of ordinary people.

The interviews in this Australian book provide an indirect insight into the beliefs of ordinary Americans and Britons.

Non-fiction category: Sociology, religion
Paperback;346 pp
First Edition; 210 x 138 mm
ISBN: 9781920787165;  November 2007
RRP/List Price: Australia: $(Aus)34.95; New Zealand: $(NZ)37.95: North America: $(US)30.00

The Author, Myer Bloom, lives in Melbourne, and researches in the sociology of religion. Past work includes:

The fractured jigsaw that became my life began even before I answered the phone. Over the next hours, running into years, jagged pieces of me fell away, trailing me as if signposting my existence. And yet, somehow, without me even knowing, somebody or something gently slid the pieces back into place. Pieces I thought were lost forever. But the jigsaw will never really be complete, for when you died you passed your pain to me.

This is the compelling story of a mother’s journey after her son suicides, and of her battle to learn to breathe again as she confronts the range of emotions that are left in the wake of suicide.
Even if you have not witnessed a loved one’s anguish due to mental illness, and their struggle to fit the ‘norm’ of society, you will find this story a powerful testament to the invincibility of love.

Coping with suicide: 1st Edition
Paperback, 248 pp
210 x 138 mm
ISBN 1 92078714 3
RRP $aud 28.95
ISBN-13 9781920787141

The Author
Janis Tait is mother to three and friend to many. She has been writing for 15 years, been published in literary magazines and won National Short Story Awards.

Janis works in the aged care industry and is a civil celebrant. She lives with her husband in Melbourne, Australia.

Paul, a young Australian priest arrives in the Philippines in 1971 as Martial Law is proclaimed by President Marcos. His idealism exposes him to first-hand experiences of violence and corruption, to injustices, and above all to the heroism of Filipinos during this extraordinary period of Philippine history. And in his personal life, Paul has to confront the loneliness of the celibate foreign cleric, living alone in the tropical fecundity of Mindanao.

The narrative confronts issues still critical to contemporary society – the misuse of power and the struggle for human rights, issues of sexuality and religion, and the search for identity.

‘ … a story … about the impact of repression on the human spirit – and the way, despite all odds, humanity struggles endlessly against worldly authority.‘ – Justice Michael Kirby

Oct 2005, 176 pp
Paperback, 210 x 138 mm
Fiction; 1st Edition,
ISBN: 1 92078715 1
RRP $aud 26.95
ISBN(13): 9781920787158

The Author
John Bartlett worked as a Catholic priest in Mindanao in the Southern Philippines from 1971 until 1980. He returned to Australia and left the priesthood, working in a variety of jobs for the next twenty years before returning to his first love – writing.

His features and short stories have been published in a variety of newspapers and magazines and he works now as a freelance writer, editor and teacher. John lives on the southern coast of Australia.

While Rose was looking forward to celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary, her husband, Lewis, remained cold and detached, his manner increasingly distant from the entire family. Rose knew that Lewis carried his wartime experiences deep within – experiences he chose not to share. But there always seemed to be an even deeper secret, something more personal.

The opening chapter fills the reader with a sense of foreboding that is not softened by the excellent and evocative imagery throughout this novel of a family farming in southern Tasmania in the 1960s.

Worm in the Bud – set in the farmlands of southern Tasmania.

Fiction – Romance: 1st Edition
Paperback, 296pp
ISBN: 1 92078712 7; 210 x 138 mm
RRp: $aud26.95
ISBN(13): 9781920787127

The Author see also: The Missing Wife
June Duncan Owen’s training and experience in history (MA from Sydney University), social work (University of Adelaide), teaching and farming inform her writing. Her previous book, The Missing Wife, was well received by readers throughout Australia.

June’s published works include
The Missing Wife, Indra Publishing 2004
Mixed Matches: Interracial Marriage in Australia, University of New South Wales Press, 2002
Writing and Selling Articles (Australian/New Zealand Guide), Hale & Iremonger, 1997
How to Write and Sell Articles, Penguin Books, 1992
The Heart of the City, Kangaroo Press, 1987.

This attractively illustrated book introduces yoga as we in the West generally discover it, and leads us into a deeper knowledge of this method of self awareness.

Yoga, Meditation and the Guru is a journey through yoga from the yoga schools of Australia to the ancient origins in the Indus River Valley, 4,500 years ago. The development of yoga in the ancient texts and practices of India is interwoven with its migration to the West.

Dr Bilimoria takes the reader through the therapeutic aspects of yoga to the philosophical traditions in India. He completes the work with a critical review of yoga as practised in Western society generally, but with emphasis on the Australian experience.

The introduction to the therapeutic value and ethical considerations of yoga bring the reader to the search for a guru, where Dr Bilimoria offers his advice concerning some precautions to take, to avoid questionable practicioners.

Dec 1989 95pp
Paperback, 215 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9587718 2 0
RRP $aud 14.95

The Author, Dr Purusottama Bilimoria, was educated in New Zealand and Australia and spent some time in India and USA, where he combined research and teaching. He has published in the areas of Indian philosophy, ethics, and comparative religions. His current research interests include post-colonial theory, on which he lectures in Bangalore, India and Melbourne, Australia. 

Issues around rage are a common symptom to survivors of abuse, and have the potential to create havoc in their lives, involving their interpersonal relationships and their social interactive abilities. Coping mechanisms can be achieved.

Volcanoes: Recovery from Rage offers a road map to achieving change, taking the reader through acknowledgement, information and healing, and providing valuable management mechanisms for anger control.

This is an informative and comprehensive text for those who have experienced severe trauma and for professionals in the healing sector. In clear and precise language, Lindsey Fairfield takes us on a thorough analysis covering all aspects of the human journey through healing and returning to wholeness. Hetty Johnston, People’s Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse

Released through Indra Publishing
Sept 2003 Paperback, 224 x 138 mm
Personal growth, surviving abuse
1st Edition ISBN: 0 6463970 0 1
RRP $aud24-95
ISBN(13): 9780646397009

The Author
As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse and a trained counsellor, Lindsey Fairfield is able to understand the need for acknowledgement, understanding and recognition of the validity of confused feelings experienced by survivors.

Lindsey conducts group sessions, teaching the process she developed to open up the spiral trap which intensifies the confused feelings resulting from childhood abuse. Focussed on recovery from the rage which is an extremely debilitating consequence of child abuse, Lindsey’s process has helped many survivors establish normal relationships and roles in our society which generally rejects anger.

Lindsey wrote this book from her personal experience as a survivor and as a counsellor, to help survivors develop the skills necessary for fitting comfortably in society, skills development which is missing from most counselling services.

What did happen to sixteen people on that night in February nearly two hundred years ago??

There are many stories of people lost in the bush. Children who strayed, travellers who disappeared, explorers who never returned to their camps. But when sixteen individuals leave the realm of the living without a single trace and when the one person who witnessed all that happened chose to go to the grave in silence … then there is a mystery indeed. A dark and mysterious novel set in the early 1800s.

Molly McPhee and her daughter, Alice, visit Major Walden in his isolated country home. When Walden is called away on duty, he leaves his convict manservant, Halls, in charge. When he returns, Mollie is dead and Halls and Alice have gone. The indigenous Dharawal – the Water People – offer their explanation of what happened before Alice was swallowed up by the earth.

A nineteenth century mystery set on the shores of Botany Bay, Sydney.

The Water People is the second of Angela Badger’s historical novels from the early convict period. It is based on news reports and anecdotes from the period, which recount how a search party was lost during violent storms on the shores of Botany Bay. They had been searching for a convict who was believed to have abducted a woman after murdering her mother. Only the convict came out of the bush – manacled, exhausted and silent. He died under the lash and his secret died with him.

October 2004, 224 pp
Fiction: 1st Edition
ISBN: 1 92078705 4
Paperback, 210 x 138 mm
RRP: $aud24-95

The Author
Angela Badger was born in the New Forest, Hampshire, England. She emigrated to Australia in 1970 and maintains ongoing contact with UK. Her interest in Australian history is the main source of inspiration for her fiction. In The Water People, Angela fills the gaps in a brief item of news she found in a newsletter of early Sydney.

Angela’s books
The Water People, Indra
Charlotte Badger – Buccaneer, Indra
The Boy from Buninyong

Junior fiction
The River’s Revenge
Poles Apart

Angela is currently researching her next novel, set in southern New South Wales in the late nineteenth century. This novel promises to continue her easy to read style of presenting historical events as lived adventures involving real people.

When Dining with Tigers is a fictional account of a young Chinese English teacher, nicknamed Moby, and his older Australian friend, retired journalist, Wilson. Their story begins in Sydney in 1986, when Moby is billetted at Wilson’s house, and ends in Beijing in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Moby’s understanding of the Australian, and particularly the Chinese-Australian, way of life slowly develops during his year in Sydney, refining his skills as an English teacher. His own family life in Beijing is presented by way of letters from his wife, who anxiously awaits the birth of her brother’s first child. Her fears of how her brother would react if the child is a girl, become a reality. The personal tragedies caused by the one-child policy make a disconcerting continuity with the family tragedies resultant from the Cultural Revolution.

Interwoven into their adventures and misadventures in Sydney and Beijing are analysis and commentary provided by the 16th century Chinese scholar, Wu Cheng-en and the heroes of his epic Journey to the West. Scholar Wu, who is cast as the narrator of Tigers, uses classical Chinese folk stories and legends to illustrate moral principles and cultural behaviours which are challenged by the circumstances in which Moby and Wilson find themselves. Wu Cheng-en’s heroes – the priest Tripitaka and his companions – argue the merits of how Moby, Wilson and the people among whom they live and work in Sydney and Beijing live out their roles.

Tigers takes the reader from mild street demonstrations in mid-80s Sydney, campaigning against the Australia Card, to the enormity of the demonstrations for liberalisation which culminated in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989. The familiar images of Tiananmen Square are recounted verbally, including what is probably the best written account of the young man confronting and stopping the tank, an image which still brings hope to oppressed peoples the world over.

215 x 138 mm Paperback, 376pp
Fiction; 1st Edition
ISBN 0 9585805 2 9
RRP $aud$22-95
ISBN(13) 978 0958580526

The Author
Frank Chan Loh was born in Malaysia, and migrated to Australia, already an acknowledged playwright. His radio plays have been performed on Radio Malaysia, and he has won short story competitions in England. When Dining With Tigers is Frank’s first novel.

Frank, who has an arts degree from the University of Queensland, lives in Sydney with his wife and their two sons. Frank has worked as a waiter and kitchen hand, a wine seller, a factory hand and recently retired from his role as a mathematics teacher. His broad knowledge of Chinese literature and tradition is complemented by his broad reading of Australian and international literature.

Frank, one of the male minority of Asian-Australian writers, has a unique style which reflects his interest in the difference between China and Australia in interpretation of family, nation and personal life.

True stories from the Northern Territory, not all of which found their way into the press of the time. From the humorous to the harrowing, including:

A crocodile trapper releases his catch in the local pub, just for a bit of a laugh.
Survivors are rescued from the wreckage of their homes in the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy.
Seven year old Nora Brown is kidnapped from her white foster family and returned to tribal land.
Hundreds of letters from armchair lawyers pass judgement on the infamous Chamberlain case.
And an incredible flight from colonial justice makes a folk hero of Nemarluk, the indigenous guerrilla warrior.

Paperback, 210 x 138 mm
Non-Fiction: 200pp;1st Edition
ISBN: 192078707 0
RRP $aud23.95
ISBN(13): 9781920787073

The Author
Ken White is a senior journalist with wide experience in Northern Australia and the neighbouring region. He worked in Darwin during the 1970s and 1980s, covering some of the most significant events in recent Australian history.

This is Ken’s second book to come out of his many years in Darwin. In it he reviews Northern Territory news-making events from very local humorous stories to events like Cyclone Tracy which generated nationwide, indeed worldwide, interest. Several of the stories in this collection provide previously unpublished background material on significant events in the Territory. Ken’s first book published by Indra is Criado: A Story of East Timor

Following his time in Darwin, Ken moved to Adelaide, and now lives in Melbourne.