Indra publishing

WORLD WAR 2 in the Asia-Pacific still casts many shadows. The shadows fall on the lives of Australian ex-POWs, soldiers and their families. Veterans are aged but recall horrors under Japanese Imperial Forces as fresh as yesterday. Dark, too, are the shadows cast on civilians trapped in the conflict – innocents who suffered through starvation, forced labour and prostitution.

Against this is the determination by reactionary Japanese powerbrokers to obliterate this history by rewriting school textbooks so post-war Japanese remain ignorant of their war history.

This book presents the deepest and innermost thoughts drawn from some 200 interviews and responses with Australian veterans. Critically all tell of what they think of the Japanese now. This is their record in their own words.

August 2005, 248 pp
Paperback, 210 x 138 mm
Non-Fiction, 1st Edition,
RRP $27.95ISBN: 1 92078713 5
ISBN-13: 9781920787011

The Authors
Ryoko Adachi has long experience as a journalist and author. As a foreign correspondent in Australia she has written for Japanese media including The Japan Times and Nichigo Press. She authored My Australia – Australia Through A Woman’s Eyes and translated Full Fathom Five by Mary Albertus – both published in Japan. Her weekly program, ‘Ryoko’s Letter From Australia’ was broadcast for years on Radio Australia.

Andrew McKay is a veteran journalist, working as a columnist in the Canberra Press Gallery, then as a foreign correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald in London. He worked for Murdoch publications in New York as the first Australian journalist on the New York Post and then covered North and South America for the News Ltd Bureau. Returning to Australia he became News Editor and then Victorian Editor of The Australian. Andrew has written numerous non-fiction books and TV scripts.

Parallel Forces is the story of a unique family, centred on Amyrra, one of twin sisters. Amyrra’s story is set mainly in modern Australia but also in ancient Java. Her life parallels the life of a queen, Ken Dedes, in the Golden Age of a Javanese kingdom. Amyrra seeks refuge in a personal God to free herself from her fate to love and suffer again, as she believes she had so many centuries earlier.

The story opens with the adult sisters attending a wedding in suburban Camberwell, then quickly flashes back to childhood in Singapore. They were born in Singapore, where their Javanese father, Hardoyo, a poet and their French mother, Claudine, an artist, lived for ten years.

Moving to Indonesia when the girls were just teen-age, the family is shocked when a village seer tells Amyrra that she is the present incarnation of the twelfth century Javanese queen, Ken Dedes, and that she will meet the present incarnation of the queen’s lover, Ken Arok, and they will resume their love affair.

During the Golden Age of the Majapahit kingdom, Ken Dedes married her lover, Ken Arok, after he had killed her husband, the king. Their relationship ended unhappily and their descendants have fought and killed each other for generations after. Despite her obsession to avoid meeting her fated lover, Amyrra finally meets Sean Devlin, who she feels she has known for a long time. From then on, her life parallels the life of Ken Dedes, as she is swept toward the horrifying end.

Nov 1988, 197pp
Paperback, 215 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9587718 1 2
RRP $aud 16.95
ISBN-13 978

The Author
As a published writer of novels, short stories and essays, and an established role as a regional journalist, Dewi Anggraeni is well-known in both Australia and Indonesia, especially among those in both countries who maintain an interest in regional affairs.
Her major works have been published by Indra Publishing:
Who Did This To Our Bali?, 2003
Snake, 2003
Neighbourhood Tales: A Bilingual Collection, 2001
Journeys Through Shadows, 1998
Stories of Indian Pacific, 1992
Parallel Forces, 1988
The Root of all Evil, 1987

Dewi’s poetry, short stories and essays appear in anthologies from a range of publishers:
“Journey to My Cultural Home” in Weaving a Double Cloth; Stories of Asia Pacific Women in Australia (Ed. Myra Jean Bourke, Susanne Holzknecht and Annie Bartlett, Pandanus Books, 2002)
“Exposing Crimes Against Women” in The Last Days of President Suharto (Ed. Edward Aspinall, Herb Feith and Gerry van Klinken, Monash Asia Institute, 1999)
“Rejected by Ibu Pertiwi” in Motherlode (Ed. Stephanie Holt and Maryanne Lynch, Sybylla Feminist Press, 1997)
“From Indonesia to Australia and Back: Cultural Sensitivities” in Crossing Cultures: Essays on Literature & Culture of the Asia-Pacific (Ed.Bruce Bennett, Jeff Doyle, Satendra Nandan, Skoob Books, 1996)”Illegal” in Our Heritage (Ed. Satyagraha Hoerip, Pustaka Binaman Pressindo, 1993)
“Irritations” in Striking Chords (Ed. Sneja Gunew and Kateryna O Longley, Allen & Unwin, 1992)
“Mal Tombé” in Beyond the Echo (Ed. Sneja Gunew and Jan Mahyuddin UQP, 1988)
“A Foreigner in East Gippsland” in Up From Below (Women’s Redress Press Inc., 1987)

While Indonesia and Australia form the focus and location of Dewi Anggraeni’s works, this collection of short stories, Neighbourhood Tales, explores themes shared by people in every country, every culture. Stories of love, stories of mystery and stories of the family can be found throughout the world, and this bilingual book captures the local flavour for both Australian and Indonesian readers.

Neighbourhood Tales vary widely from the passionate, sensuous world of the composer in “Music for Libretto”, through the dark haunting flashbacks to the shared past of Australia and Indonesia in “The Hut”; from the unexpected humour of marital instability in “Family Law”, to the touching discovery of a child’s special gift in “Synesthesia”.

Dewi paints word pictures which carry her readers inside the relationships between her characters, between her characters and their surrounds, between her neighbouring home countries – Australia and Indonesia.

This book presents a new approach in bilingual books – the stories have not been translated from the language in which they were first written. The twelve stories have all been written twice, once in English, once in Indonesian. In re-writing her stories in the second language, Dewi has allowed for the differences in writing conventions and social mores between Australia and Indonesia.

What is acceptable in Australian writing is not always accepted in Indonesia. What is plausible in Indonesian writing can sometimes seem far-fetched or fanciful in Australia. This makes the collection eminently suited to students and others interested in learning about the culture of Indonesia, not just the language.

July 2001, 248pp
Paperback, 216 x 138 mm
Fiction, 1st Edition
ISBN 0 9585805 7 X
RRP $aud 21.95
ISBN-13 978 0958580571

The Author
As a published writer of novels, short stories and essays, and an established role as a regional journalist, Dewi Anggraeni is well-known in both Australia and Indonesia, especially among those in both countries who maintain an interest in regional affairs.

Her major works have been published by Indra Publishing:
Who Did This To Our Bali?, 2003
Snake, 2003
Neighbourhood Tales: A Bilingual Collection, 2001
Journeys Through Shadows, 1998
Stories of Indian Pacific, 1992
Parallel Forces, 1988
The Root of all Evil, 1987

Dewi’s poetry, short stories and essays appear in anthologies from a range of publishers:
“Journey to My Cultural Home” in Weaving a Double Cloth; Stories of Asia Pacific Women in Australia (Ed. Myra Jean Bourke, Susanne Holzknecht and Annie Bartlett, Pandanus Books, 2002)
“Exposing Crimes Against Women” in The Last Days of President Suharto (Ed. Edward Aspinall, Herb Feith and Gerry van Klinken, Monash Asia Institute, 1999)
“Rejected by Ibu Pertiwi” in Motherlode (Ed. Stephanie Holt and Maryanne Lynch, Sybylla Feminist Press, 1997)
“From Indonesia to Australia and Back: Cultural Sensitivities” in Crossing Cultures: Essays on Literature & Culture of the Asia-Pacific (Ed.Bruce Bennett, Jeff Doyle, Satendra Nandan, Skoob Books, 1996)
“Illegal” in Our Heritage (Ed. Satyagraha Hoerip, Pustaka Binaman Pressindo, 1993)
“Irritations” in Striking Chords (Ed. Sneja Gunew and Kateryna O Longley, Allen & Unwin, 1992)
“Mal Tombé” in Beyond the Echo (Ed. Sneja Gunew and Jan Mahyuddin UQP, 1988)
“A Foreigner in East Gippsland” in Up From Below (Women’s Redress Press Inc., 1987)

After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Niqi Thomas, a young Czech Australian woman, returns with her father to Prague, to visit her ancestral city and to discover her grandfather, who was always ‘present’ in the family, but whom she had never met – Karel Goliath-Gorovsky, the Czech Solzhenitsyn.

For Niqi, it became a journey of self-discovery, through discovery of her grandfather. A rebel from birth, Czech lawyer, Karel Goliath-Gorovsky, was imprisoned in a Soviet gulag north of the Arctic Circle, because of his relentless political idealism. His potent black humour enabled him to survive those seventeen darkest years of his political life, which spanned from the brutal excesses of Stalin to the liberating hope of Dubcek.

His son, abandoned by his father at the age of one, developed his own black humour to survive Mischling status under the Nazi occupation, the Stalinist regime in his homeland, Czechoslovakia, and flight to Australia – his new land of opportunity where some people crossed the street when they saw a ‘wog’ approaching.

This family narrative includes a subversive retake on the biblical Goliath, who appears several times through the book, connecting Goliath-Gorovsky with the biblical character, who paradoxically, was killed by his Hebrew ancestors.

Minerva’s Owl is a literary treatment of national and personal history, which explores the effect of war and displacement upon the exiled individuals and their families. Throughout this book, the continually reinforced image is of the individual standing against the juggernaut of dictatorship and bureaucracy, and resolutely refusing to fear.

A sense of dark laughter – developed as a survival mechanism – in which the choice is to laugh or die, pervades the book. In Goliath-Gorovsky’s own words: “After the tragedy a humoresque. Instead of a conclusion.”

June 2003, 312pp
Non fiction, 1st Edition
Paperback, 216 x 138 mm
ISBN: 0 9578735 6 5
RRP: $aud 24-95
ISBN-13: 9780957873568

The Author With formal qualifications and teaching experience in creative writing at Victorian universities, Niqi Thomas has had several short stories and poems published in literary magazines during the 1990s.

Her works have appeared in New England Review, 8d Anthology of Erotica, Centoria Poetry Magazine, Journal of the Black Rose, Hidden Agenda, STET; Australian Writers and Writing, to name only a few. Niqi lives in Melbourne. Her next book is currently being considered for publication.

In the autumn of 1870, Nikolai Miklouho Maclay, a young marine biologist, left his home in St Petersburg to travel to the remote territory of New Guinea. It was the start of an adventure that was to test his courage and determination and force him to examine the ideals that had inspired his quest for a people not yet spoiled by European civilisation.

A beautifully told adventure story and a fascinating reconstruction of Maclay’s own account of his efforts to survive, the book follows him from his home in Russia into the jungles of New Guinea and the sophisticated Vice-Regal circles of the Dutch East Indies – a journey that would see him mistaken for a god and enshrined as a legend.

Maclay’s great courage and impetuous character inspired much of what has been written about his life and work. He was also a man of great personal charm and integrity, succeeding as well with Papuan warriors as he did with people of the highest rank in government and empire.

In his choice of New Guinea as the primary area for his anthropological studies, Maclay was searching for nothing less than the ‘probable cradle of the human race’. While he did not subscribe to the theory of the ‘noble savage’, Maclay longed to discover, somewhere in the steamy jungles of this racially unique island, an innocence and purity long departed from the ‘civilisation’ of the Europeans.

His hopes and dreams, his triumphs and failures make up this literary account of Maclay’s time in New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies.

Then he knew his best chance. Maclay stood up. “Give me the spear,” he said to Saul, and when Saul slowly passed the weapon to him he took it, weighed it for a moment in his hand, letting the tension build inside the hut until it was nearly unbearable. He turned slowly and offered the spear to Tui. “Let’s see if Maclay can die,” he said.

August 2001,
192pp Paperback, 216 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9585805 8 8
Literary Biography; 1st Edition
RRP $aud 22-95
ISBN-13 978 0958580586
Includes 2 line maps

The Author, K.H. Rennie is a journalist, scriptwriter, and a technical author. She currently lives in Melbourne with her husband and four children. Fictionalised history is Ms Rennie’s special area of interest. Her research is pitched toward gleaning the personalities of the people who made history, an area not usually considered as important as the outcomes of their actions. In her novels, historical figures are re-introduced as real people, with their unique characters which made them memorable blended into their ordinariness which enables us to get to know them.
Maclay is her first novel.

Valerie Kirwan’s sharp observation and sharper wit presents us with these four cameos of love loved and love lost in the last decades of the twentieth century. Local stories with universal themes, the novellas reflect the emotional roller coaster of the century of alienation.

And then there were the good nights – a novella about love, friendship and good times over two decades 1974 to 1994 – focuses on a small group of friends whose lives revolve around theatre and their relationships.

In the cold morning light – a mystery thriller and a story of elusive love. When Aysin returns alone to Charles’s isolated house without Bebe, her lover, she becomes obsessed with questions about Bebe’s fate and Charles’s role in her disappearance.

Michael – a story of illusory love – portrays a domineering mother through the eyes of Anna, her son’s girlfriend. Domination and alienation mark the bleak days spent at Michael’s mother’s house, days that culminate in Anna’s losing Michael as he withdraws into a new identity, which allows her no place in his life.

Mrs Wedge’s Waterford and a crate of champagne – a black comedy about life without love – is Lou Wedge’s story of coping with her irascible ailing mother and her own frustrated loneliness.

Feb 2001, 210pp
Paperback, 215 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9585805 1 0
RRP $aud 20.95
Literary fiction; Novellas
ISBN-13 978

The Author
For twenty years since the mid-seventies, Valerie Kirwan was something of a legend in Melbourne theatre, writing, directing and performing plays which challenged and enchanted her audiences.

More recently, Valerie is writing novellas and short stories in which she tests her characters against the subconscious stresses that exist below the surface of our outwardly normal, everyday world. Through intrigue, suspense, and more than a little sardonic humour, Valerie challenges us to join in her psychological dramas.

Valerie’s published books
Taking A Fool to Paradise (Indra 2004)
Lovers and Losers of the Last Century (Indra 2001)
The Disease of the Silkworm (Hornets Nest 2000)
The Moon is Bloodshot (Hornets Nest 1999)
The Will to Fall (Penguin 1984)

How can one man stand up against against the will of his own people and refuse to fight in a war he doesn’t believe in? What sort of courage does it take to refuse to become one more brave soldier going off to war?

Or is Gerry’s anti-war attitude just a selfish desire to continue his comfortable life with his girl-friend, his leftist poetry-readings and his botanical research?

Set in New Zealand and Italy during World War ll, this novel portrays the anxieties and dilemma for a man who is conscripted to fight in a war he doesn’t believe in. And when he is conscripted, Gerry Cook realises he is not heroic enough to refuse the call-up. Gerry’s resolution of his dilemma is as clear as it is shocking.

The intensely local setting of Lancewood portrays a very ordinary man and woman confronting universal questions of duty and love, honour and freedom.

In Alan Marshall’s first novel, he provides a perspective on war, in which rebellion against authority is the individual’s main defence.

1999, 210pp
Paperback, 215 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9585805 1 0
Fiction, 1st Edition
RRP $aud 20.95
ISBN-13 978

The Author
Born in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, Alan Marshall dropped out of high school to travel. He gained his BSc (Hons) from the University of Wolverhampton in England, his M.Phil from Massey University in New Zealand, and completed his doctorate at the University of Wollongong, New south Wales. Alan currently lives in Slovakia.

Lancewood is Alan’s first novel.

When Maryati leaves her village in Central Java to live in Melbourne with her Australian husband Trevor, she suffers the intense pain of separation from her baby son. She soon realises that Trevor would never be able to accept that his innocent Maryati already had a son from an earlier casual liaison.

In Melbourne, Eni, also from Indonesia, becomes Maryati’s personal support system. Eni is so successful, so sophisticated, fitting comfortably into the professional community surrounding her lover, Alex and his brother, Simon. Their friendship matures as their circumstances change. Maryati experiences personal breakdown as her marriage collapses under the weight of Trevor’s intransigence. Reunion with her son is the start of her recovery, a full recovery in which she becomes the sophisticated, successful woman of her village. The roles are reversed in the women’s friendship as Eni’s relationship with Alex leads to her becoming victim to an act of sorcery. It is only through Maryati that she is rescued from the satanic garden into which she has been cast.

Journeys Through Shadows carries all the emotional and cultural interplay that has become Dewi Anggraeni’s trademark.

Oct 1998, 223pp
Paperback, 215 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9585805 0 2
Fiction 1st Edition
RRP $aud 20.95
ISBN-13 978

The Author
As a published writer of novels, short stories and essays, and an established role as a regional journalist, Dewi Anggraeni is well-known in both Australia and Indonesia, especially among those in both countries who maintain an interest in regional affairs.

Her major works have been published by Indra Publishing:
Who Did This To Our Bali?, 2003
Snake, 2003
Neighbourhood Tales: A Bilingual Collection, 2001
Journeys Through Shadows, 1998
Stories of Indian Pacific, 1992
Parallel Forces, 1988
The Root of all Evil, 1987

Dewi’s poetry, short stories and essays appear in anthologies from a range of publishers:
“Journey to My Cultural Home” in Weaving a Double Cloth; Stories of Asia Pacific Women in Australia (Ed. Myra Jean Bourke, Susanne Holzknecht and Annie Bartlett, Pandanus Books, 2002)
“Exposing Crimes Against Women” in The Last Days of President Suharto (Ed. Edward Aspinall, Herb Feith and Gerry van Klinken, Monash Asia Institute, 1999)
“Rejected by Ibu Pertiwi” in Motherlode (Ed. Stephanie Holt and Maryanne Lynch, Sybylla Feminist Press, 1997)
“From Indonesia to Australia and Back: Cultural Sensitivities” in Crossing Cultures: Essays on Literature & Culture of the Asia-Pacific (Ed.Bruce Bennett, Jeff Doyle, Satendra Nandan, Skoob Books, 1996)
“Illegal” in Our Heritage (Ed. Satyagraha Hoerip, Pustaka Binaman Pressindo, 1993)
“Irritations” in Striking Chords (Ed. Sneja Gunew and Kateryna O Longley, Allen & Unwin, 1992)
“Mal Tombé” in Beyond the Echo (Ed. Sneja Gunew and Jan Mahyuddin UQP, 1988)
“A Foreigner in East Gippsland” in Up From Below (Women’s Redress Press Inc., 1987)

Motivation, persistence and perseverance are the distinct traits of determined and dedicated individuals who can make things happen. It’s always possible, even when the task is awesome – transforming the mindset of human beings.

Located in India’s capital, New Delhi, Tihar is one of the largest prisons in the world. Within a prison complex of over 200 acres are housed over 9,700 inmates – men, women, adolescents, children; Indians and foreigners. They comprise unconvicted alleged offenders, convicts and remandees. Tihar was a limping, languishing institution, condemned by the media, and its inmates were isolated from the community, exploited, used and abused, yet ‘housed’.

Dr Kiran Bedi was appointed Inspector General of Tihar Prison in 1993. She brought about fundamental changes, giving a human face to the administrative structure and creating an exemplary system covering every possible aspect of prison management. The whole objective was to collectively and individually manage the transition from a moribund system to a responsive and sensitive administration. Hence her efforts unfolded the process of reformation involving prison administration, prisoners and the community, toward one common goal – Correction through a collective approach.

Dr Bedi’s account is enhanced by input from the prisoners themselves, expressing their feelings in letters and sketches, in petitions and poetry. This book is a graphic portrayal of an holistic process of conversion, a metamorphosis from criminality to humanity, achieved within a restrictive legal framework.

Oct 1999, 400pp
Paperback, 231 x 155 mm
Non-fiction
ISBN 0 9585805 3 7
RRP $aud 27.95
ISBN-13 9780958580533

The Author
Dr Kiran Bedi was the first woman police officer in India to become Inspector General of Prisons, when she was put in charge of Tihar, to administer the predominantly male prison, the largest prison in the Asia-Pacific region. Her experience and expertise as a police officer include 26 years of tough yet responsive and interactive policing in different functions throughout India – District policing, Police administration, Traffic control, Narcotics control, and Anti-terrorist operations. Subsequently, she was central to the radical reforms in Tihar, where the focus before she took control, had been merely keeping people locked away from society. She achieved the reforms through her radically humanitarian approach to managing such an institution.

Having earned the reputation of a police officer with a difference, she has represented India at the United Nations, in USA, European and Asian forums on drug abuse, drug trafficking, prison reform, and women’s issues. Recipient of various awards and honours, she has received the Police Medal for Gallantry; the Norway-based Asia Region Award for Work in Prevention of Drug Abuse; the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1994, referred to as the Asian Nobel Prize, and in 1997, the Swiss-German Joseph Beuys Award for Holistic and Innovative Management.

When mining magnate, pioneer photographer and public benefactor, Bernhardt Holtermann died prematurely at the height of his success, the speculation and rumours started.

Some who knew Bernhardt closely had guessed the true nature of his relationship with Victoria, his children’s beautiful governess. They enjoyed the lavish parties and genteel soirées given by Harriet – Mrs Holtermmann, but some believed they detected an edge of tension under the formal cordiality between herself and Bernhardt.

Had she tired of being patient with her husband’s attentions to Victoria, or had Victoria tired of waiting for the divorce which would release her lover to become her husband?

Holtermann’s Nugget is an historical novel based on the life of the successful 19th century miner and businessman, the pioneer photographer, Bernhardt Holtermann. Bernhardt came to Sydney as a young man, to avoid conscription and the restrictive life of Hamburg in the 1850s.

Having made his fortune in gold mining at Hill End, Holtermann became famous as one of the most successful businessmen in Sydney during the early 1880s. His tireless drive for building his new country and showing Australia off to the world with magnificent panoramic photographs took him to international trade fairs in Philadelphia and Paris.

Bernhardt’s untimely death on his 47th birthday adds romance and intrigue to this novel of an adventurous life. Holtermann’s main bequest to the nation are his magnificent photographs which won for him international acclaim, and for Australia, international recognition.

2000, 168pp
Paperback, 216 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9585805 5 3
Historical fiction, 1st Edition
RRP $aud 20.85
ISBN-13 978 0958580557

The Author
Gunter Schaule was born in Germany and, like his hero Bernhardt Holtermann, migrated to Australia to live a different life and make his career in a new country. Gunter has travelled widely, and maintains close friendships with people in all continents. He still manages his own successful business, but allows time for writing and enjoying his life.

Gunter’s previous books, all non-fiction, are all selling successfully internationally. Holtermann’s Nugget is his first novel, and the first of his books to be published by Indra. Gunter lives in Sydney with his wife, Marianne.