The third volume of Catherine Hoffmann’s Lia Mendez trilogy is now available as an ebook. Find it on Amazon for $(US)4.99 a copy or the equivalent price in your own currency on your national Amazon site.
Taking Wing is a story about belonging to each other in family, loss of livelihood and hope in the much loved country of birth, and finally, arriving destitute in a new land far away to create a new home.
Catherine Hoffmann’s novel of love and survival during the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Across the Burning, the second story of the Lia Mendez trilogy, is now available as an ebook.
Find it on Amazon for $(US)5.99, or the equivalent in your local currency via your national branch of Amazon.
Catherine Hoffmann’s luxuriant novel, the first book of the Lia Mendez trilogy, Of Exile and Yearning, is now available as an ebook.
It is available on Amazon for $(US)6.99, or for the equivalent price in your own currency on your national Amazon.
“The author’s themes are thickly woven: history, the spiritual quest, exile, the question of destiny and choice, the imperatives of faith and the shapes it adopts.” Alex Skovron
The third novel of the Lia Mendez trilogy, Taking Wing, was released in September 2011.
The Lia Mendez trilogy, spans three generations of the Mendez-Kremzier and Heiman families, the paths of their lives intersected by the conflicts and changes which shaped Central Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. Of Exile and Yearning (2009) and Across the Burning (2010) are the first two books of the trilogy.
Set in the era when Europe’s thousand year thrust for universal fraternity detours into the Communist tyranny, Taking Wing follows an ordinary man and an extraordinary woman, Frederic and Lia, as they struggle to stay sane in the face of civic stupidity and individual evil.
Lia is called to open her arms to the difficult truth that has always been her pillar of fire. Frederic, as husband and father, strives to hold on to all that is real, and not be stifled by his natural scepticism. Their children, Regan, inheritor of a past of wonder and betrayal, fights for self-definition, and Mercedes, a child born wounded, seeks the source of healing within.
Taking Wing is a story about belonging and forsaking, the loss of all and the state of abandonment, and finally, the coming to nothing that turns out to be everything under another land’s new stars.
ISBN 9781920787202
Literary fiction
pb 233 x 151 mm
268 pages
$28.95 rrp
Special offer: In Australia, a personal order for one copy with postage included costs $30.00.
Catherine Hoffmann’s novel, Across the Burning, was released by Indra in October 2010.
Across the Burning is the second novel of the Lia Mendez trilogy, an epic which spans three generations of the Mendez-Kremzier and Heiman families, the paths of their lives intersected by the conflicts and changes which shaped Central Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.
Once enthralled by the grand vistas of travel, Frederic returns to Hungary as Europe is about to burst into the fire of World War II. He, a sharp and worldly non-believer, returns to Rudi Wolf, his soul friend, to Lia Mendez, his only love – his two Jewish friends now married, but still welcoming him as part of their life. With passion and loyalty to each other the three friends face the Nazi occupation.
A story of sensibility and identity, of exile, abandonment and returning to yourself.
Of Exile and Yearning, the first book of the trilogy, was released in September 2009.
ISBN 9781920787189
Literary fiction
pb 234 x 150 mm
290 pp
$29.95 rrp
Special Offer: In Australia, a personal order for one copy with postage included costs $30.00.
Catherine Hoffmann’s novel, Of Exile and Yearning, was released on 15 September 2009 by Indra Publishing.
Of Exile and Yearning is the first book of the Lia Mendez trilogy.
This epic novel is set in Europe from 1910 to the mid-1930s, exploring lives buffeted by the turbulent historical forces transforming central Europe from the last flourish of the Austro-Hungarian empire to the chilling build-up of the Second World War.
Lia and Frederic meet as children, never declare their love for one another, and yet remain inseparably bonded. From the comfort and security of her Jewish home, Lia chooses her own exile, with devastating effect on her family. Her journey is a personal spiritual quest. Frederic, neither Jewish nor religious, emphatically refuses commitment to any ideal or belief. For him, life is for adventure and travel, the quest for enjoyment, and never to be taken too seriously.
For the continuation of Lia and Frederic’s story, wait for Across the Burning, the second book of the trilogy, to be released in mid-2010.
Catherine’s three earlier works, Perilous Journey (1981), Crystal (1987) and Forms of Bliss (1988), were all published by Greenhouse Publications.
ISBN 9781920787172
Literary fiction
pb 233 x 151 mm
451 pages
$34.95 rrp
Special offer: In Australia, a personal order for one copy with postage included costs $35.00.
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.
The Trembling Bridge, by Manfred Jurgensen, explores migration as a rite of passage. It tells the story of Mark, a story in two parts. Part 1 is his boyhood in southern Denmark and northern Germany toward the end of WWII. The second part is about his migration and settlement in Australia, the land of the “beautiful enemy”.
Mark is delicate as a child, who suffers the loss of his father in the war and the premature death of a friend. As the war ends he sees in the refugees who flood into his town, the horror of displacement, hunger, fear, defeat. Because of his ill-health, Mark has to stay for some time in a sanatorium, where he is fascinated and frightened by a very charismatic bigger boy, Sannes, who on one occasion, sexually assaults him. Sannes is the focus of the sequel novel to be published by Indra in late 2004, The Eyes of the Tiger.
From the Bonnegilla migrant camp, to the secondary school examinations board, Mark’s life gradually becomes more established. The story ends on a positive note, as if, after the often harrowing hard work of growing up and settling into a new country Mark feels he is about to set off into the independence of his maturity.
March 2004, 344 pp
Paperback, 216 x 138 mm
ISBN 1 92078703 8
Fiction, 1st edition
RRP $aud 26-95
ISBN-13 9781920787035
The Author
Originally from Denmark, Manfred Jurgensen settled in Australia at the age of twenty-one, working as actor, playwright and reviewer. Manfred started publishing poetry in the early seventies and to date, he has produced thirteen collections.
He taught literature at Melbourne, Monash and Queensland University where he was appointed to a Personal Chair. From 1984 to 1996 he edited the influential journal of multicultural literature, Outrider. In 1988 he edited the bicentennial Penguin anthology, Australian Writing Now (co-editor Robert Adamson).
Over the last twenty years Manfred has published novels, plays, film scripts, diaries, essays, short stories, literary criticism and poetry. In addition to his writings in English, much of his literary and academic work appears in German. He is a prolific translator and advocate of contemporary Australian literature.
Manfred’s books published by Indra, are The Trembling Bridge and The Eyes of the Tiger.
Fiona Hindmarsh, a successful middle-aged economist, likes to live her life her way.
Beginning the love-of-her-life affair with the gorgeous Laine Macready, a girl who wears a Hardie Aimes shirt like no one else can, she is interrupted by a phone call. Her sister, Gillian, brings her the news that their mother, Muriel, had a heart attack at the top of a plum tree she was pruning and died. Irritably Fi sets off on a night-time drive home to help Gillian organise the funeral.
What precisely is home for Fi? Where her mother lived in Northern New South Wales, among the tea-drinking relatives who, as Gillian reminds her, made Fi what she is today? Is home the girl of the moment who happens to make her heart miss a beat? Or is home merely one of the houses Fi has bought in Australia or leased in Bali?
Fi is contrary, her head and her heart responding to different music. And as a child, Fi was sensitive to the ghostly spirits of the Bundjalung who inhabited the land the Hindmarshes and the Darks took over for dairy farms. How does she reconcile the mutterings and wailings and chantings she hears in her heart with the classic cinema sound booming in her head and the skin-smarting indignity of betrayal?
A novel combining a love story with a perspective on the farmers’ settlement history of the Far North Coast of New South Wales, that grew with new grass on old rainforest soil.
March 2003, 232 pp
Paperback, 216 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9578735 8 1
Literary fiction, 1st edition
RRP $aud 22-95
ISBN-13 9780957873582
The Author
Carolyn van Langenberg grew up in the rural hinterland of the Far North Coast of New South Wales. She has travelled in Southeast Asia and Europe. Carolyn’s books reflect her background in Australian and English literature, Asian history and creative writing. She lives with her husband in the Blue Mountains.
The fish lips trilogy, set in Malaysia and Australia from the 1940s to the 21st century, looks at three angles on love: heterosexual, homosexual and tortured.
In fish lips, Rose, Li-tsieng’s paramour, becomes a ghost when the Japanese bombed Penang in 1941. Was she ever real?
Fiona Hindmarsh in The Teetotaller’s Wake longs to be back with her new girlfriend during the family ceremonies that follow her mother’s death.
In Blue Moon, urban conservationist Badul Mukhapadai tries to save Penang, Malaysia, from developers and falls in love with the clean air of Byron Bay, Australia, where he consummates his passion for the prickly historian, Gillian Hindmarsh.
The Fish Lips Trilogy… by Carolyn van Langenberg
Fish Lips 2001 $aud22.95 ISBN: 0 95858059 6
The Teetotaller’s Wake 2003 $aud22.95 ISBN: 0 95787358 1
Blue Moon 2004$aud27.95ISBN: 1 92078710 0
The Real Desire is a collection of essays, written over the last ten years by Robyn Ferrell, who is now Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. This collection is for the general reader as well as the academic and student.
In The Real Desire, the lenses of art, philosophy, sensuality, and the dreamscape invite us to explore the many guises of desire. A childhood interwoven with Aboriginal history, the banalities of buying real estate, discussion of lingerie, writers and writing, and feminist analysis of some of the great philosophers of the past.
Robyn Ferrell has brought together in one volume essays of discovery – “Pinjarra 1970”; rites of passage – “Kingdom of God” and “Feminine Arts”; disillusionment – “Paris Does Not Exist”; and critical analysis – “Hemingway’s Typewriter” and “Real Desire”.
Robyn combines the clarity of journalistic prose with the rigor of academic analysis. These essays are written for general interest as well as academic investigation.
Before he offered, it had not occurred to me that he could want what I wanted. Or, rather, that he could give this shape to what I wanted; an erotic definition. Because philosophy tutorials had been such a cerebral pleasure, like the cold light of stars. His skin, too, was cool and he continued to have a sylvan quality, only now under the influence of passion he had become a satyr or minor forest deity. from Feminine Arts
In Europe, the place of art in things becomes suddenly much clearer. There, one can see the old power under the new, like the original timber beneath the paint. In the grand architecture, the very place, that overbearing grandeur makes it not possible to avoid consciousness of the necessity of art in a world of an ancien régime; the consolation and subversion, the reflection art provides. from Paris Does Not Exist
They say that a dream of water refers to deep feeling. Aesthetics is that branch of philosophy which considers feeling. It deals with beauty, art, sensibility, passion. It would deal, if it could, with love. It is a quixotic enterprise, like reclaiming land from the sea. The tides of feeling are governed by a force we do not get to command; but we must make some effort for fear of being drowned in it. from Interpretation of Dreams
Paperback, 210 x 138 mm, 196 pp
Literary essays, 1st edition
ISBN: 1 92078701 1
RRP $aud 27-95
ISBN-13 9781920787011
Short-listed NSW Premier’s Prize
The Author
Robyn Ferrell worked as a journalist on the Sydney Morning Herald before doing her doctorate in philosophy at the University of New South Wales. Now she is the Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. As well as her books, Robyn is the author of numerous academic and journalistic articles.
Robyn is drawn to the creative breadth of essays, which can be didactic or elliptical, erudite or impassioned, and in which you can tell stories, gossip, advance speculations and explore feelings. Robyn has been a student of desire for as long as she has been a writer. The two have always accompanied each other – feeling and analysis, theory and expression, world view and personal opinion.
Robyn’s earlier books
Genres of Philosophy (Ashgate 2002)
Passion In Theory (Routledge 1996)
The Weather and Other Gods (Frances Allen 1990)
Co-editor, Cartographies: Post-structuralism and the Mapping of Bodies and Spaces (Allen & Unwin 1991)