Indra publishing

The sequel to the Lia Mendez trilogy, Catherine Hoffmann’s Wolf & Stone, Tree & Dove is now available as an ebook.

For Lia, Frederic and their daughters beginning a new life in Australia, the shock of the new looms large. Lia’s strength supports her family as Frederic struggles to make sense of their antipodean land. As Regan and Merci set out to find their place, no one could foretell the journeys on which they are embarking.

Available from Amazon at $(US)4.99, and at equivalent price from all Amazon’s national websites.

Catherine Hoffmann’s 60s-style hip young adult novel, Paradise – One Shot  has been launched as an ebook, available from Amazon.

Just what is Lou’s problem? She acts so cool, belligerently cool – but it’s not for real. Under her hip speak bravado, Lou hides a massive insecurity which keeps her on the outside, never really one of the group. She shared her dreams with her only close friend, Aurora; but Aurora died just after school finished … or did she?

Working as an assistant in a municipal library, Lou is just whiling away her life until the beautiful Mark walks in; he’s young, perhaps much too young, but he’s beautiful – strong, athletic, and definitely interested in her.

How does that relationship go? And will Lou succeed in her one shot at the paradise she yearns for?

From Amazon Kindle at $(US)2.99 or the equivalent price through Amazon’s national websites.

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.

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.

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.

The news of her sick father beckons Komala to return to Jakarta, leaving her husband and children behind in Melbourne, now her home city.

But the Jakarta she left nine years earlier has changed. The city has changed and the society is disturbingly foreign to her. Or has she changed? Komala’s is a poignant homecoming to a troubled land.

Komala’s return even to her family home is difficult, with live-in boarders and her hostile sister in law disturbing her smooth transition back to the place of her childhood.

Through one of her mother’s boaders, Komala learns of a vicious attack on a nightclub hostess, an acid attack which leaves the young woman blinded and horribly scarred. In her attempt to win some justice and compensation for the victim, Komala becomes aware of a wider world of corruption and exploitation, particularly of women.

This exploitation is made worse by the lack of solidarity among the women in Jakarta. The society is still one where man are supreme, and the women acquiese in this, allowing themselves to be dependent on a husband or lover, thereby allowing men to retain control.

The Root of All Evil is a novel as relevant today as when first released. The path for women’s liberation in many South East Asian countries still hinges very much on how women themselves view the woman who dares to declare her independence in the male-dominated society.

May 1987, 140pp
Paperback, 215 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9587718 0 4
Fiction, 1st edition
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, 200
1Journeys 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)

NOT AVAILABLE:   OUT OF PRINT

The Irish community who came seeking gold brought their old-world conflict with them to the new land of Australia. The Orange and the Green focussed their antagonism on neighbourhood pubs in 1875, at a time of waning profits and underemployment on the famous Ballarat goldfields.
The mines and mining tragedies loom large in the background as the Catholic community in Ballarat celebrated the centenary of the birth of Daniel O’Connell, known as the Liberator because he won a degree of emancipation for the Catholic majority of Ireland. The mounting pressures of this special day in the life of the Globe Hotel bring young Tommy Farrell to a newfound strength and resolve, breaking free of the bonds of his youth, to claim his own liberation – freedom to believe, freedom to grow and freedom to love.
This novel is down to earth and compelling, but well-crafted and finely balanced. The vernacular of the Irish settlers and their Australian-born children which adds to the flavour of the novel, is authenticated by Jill’s grasp of Irish usage, and her working knowledge of the Irish language.
An interesting insight into early development of the Catholic Church in Australia is presented, not as an interruption to the narrative, but as an integral part of this special day in the life of the Irish in Ballarat.

248pp Paperback, 216 x 138 mm
Fiction, 1st edition
ISBN: 0 9578735 3 0
RRP $aud 23-95
ISBN-13 9780957873539

The Author, Jill Blee, has a BA and an MA in history from Macquarie University, an MA in writing from the University of Western Sydney, and a PhD in History from the University of Ballarat. Her interests are principally in Irish and Irish-Australian history and literature and both have featured in her own writing. Over many years her attention has been focussed on Ballarat and the Irish migrants who settled there during and after the goldrushes of the 1850s.
Jill’s three novels published by Indra all have an Irish flavour – The Pines Hold Their Secrets, Brigid and The Liberator’s Birthday. The first concerns an Irish convict wrongly banished to Norfolk Island; the second is set in Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine, and the third focuses on a day in the life of an Irish family on the Ballarat goldfields.Jill’s From the Murray to the Sea, Indra, 2004, is a comprehensive history of the Catholic education system in the Diocese of Ballarat, Australia

“Tony’s wife was on the phone, ringing from their interstate home. My husband’s face drained to ashen. Tony had totally castrated himself. He had lost a lot of blood and was now in surgery.”

A shocking phone call from their distraught daughter-in-law was how Lynda and Richard Langley learnt that their son had started his transition from a man to a woman.

The mad rush to their son’s hospital bedside, anguish and fear for his physical health, shock from the nature of his injury, and the dread of the challenges to be faced in the coming months and years…

Lynda’s account of how she adjusted to the reality that her eldest son had decided to physically become a woman is the story of a family. Tears and laughter, support and withdrawal, accompany Toni – now the eldest daughter – as she maps out her new life.

And with her all the time is Lynda, her mother. Helping to select her wardrobe, guiding her in the subtleties of speech and behaviour, and supporting her, especially in the early stages of her new life as a woman.

A mother’s story of losing a son and gaining a daughter – a transgender transition and a mother’s love.

While there have been some accounts of transgender transition published on the web, this is the first account from a parent’s perspective, and the first to be published in book form.

September 2002, 168 pp
Paperback, 216 x 138 mm
ISBN: 0 9578735 5 7
Non fiction, First Edition
RRP $aud 21.95
ISBN-13 9780957873551

The Author
Lynda Langley started taking writing lessons because she thought it would be a good thing to do. Little did she realise that in a couple of years, she would have a story to tell and her writing lessons would provide her with the means of telling it.

An ordinary middle class couple in an Australian capital city, with adult children, young grandchildren and a satisfying career life, the Langleys were coasting comfortably toward retirement. Still a long time to go, they were in no hurry, and life was fulfilling enough.

This book is Lynda’s account of how she and her husband, Richard, experienced their son’s transgender transition.