Inez Baranay

In 1992 the author left her inner city life in Sydney to take up a volunteer position working with and for women in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. She landed in the intersection of very old cultures with the very latest in western religion, mining and development philosophies. The opposition of the men in power, the extreme otherness of the culture and the isolation were the difficulties; the beauty and fascination of the place and new friendships found there were the joys. This new edition includes an Afterword about the writing and reception of the book, which was first published in 1992. More at http://www.inezbaranay.com/?books=rascal-rain-a-year-in-papua-new-guinea

A brilliantly inventive novel on the idea of India as a nation, seen through the eyes of a Turkish intellectual and freedom fighter. Turkish freedom fighter, author, and citizen of the world, Halide Edib travels to India in 1935 to deliver a series of lectures, fulfilling a promise made long ago to Indian nationalist, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari. In Delhi, her host's rambling house in Daryaganj is a place of inclusive hospitality and of historical meetings. Here, Halide meets many people central to India's own independence struggle, specially Mahatma Gandhi, with whom she has several conversations. Before she departs, Halide promises to write a memoir of her time in India. The present narrator of Soul Climate peruses that memoir, and other writings by Halide, wondering what else she might have seen and remembered. In another strand of the novel that is pure fiction, three young women, close friends and cousins, who are attending Halide's lectures in Delhi, are each at a turning point in their lives, taking first steps on their separate new paths. To each of them Halide's words and personality speak differently, and they form their world views even as they get swept up in the process of their coming of age. Soul Climate deftly interweaves memoir and fiction, realism and imagination. Through it, we consider afresh such ideas as nationhood, religion, idealism, what makes us, and what divides us and how we unite.

Biography of Sasha Soldatow (1947-2006): anarchist, activist, artist, and unforgettable personality. Born in Germany to a Russian family that emigrated to Australia when he was two, Sasha grew up in Melbourne then moved to Sydney, attracted by its anarchist tradition and new underground radical publishing. He was a staunch supporter of feminism and a leading figure in the nascent gay liberation movement from the late 1960s, active in prison reform and anti-development movements. He published six critically acclaimed books, many stories, essays, and reviews, regular columns in the gay press, and pamphlets of poetry and polemics that he also illustrated, designed and published. He traveled to Moscow where his dreams of living like a Russian were shattered as the Soviet Union fell apart. He is well remembered for his flamboyance, humour and outrageousness; his passions for politics and friendships; his influence, mentoring and editing for many well-known writers; his legal action against the premier funding body of the time; his poetry readings and cabaret performances; his generous and stylish hospitality.

3 eras, 3 women: linked by Berlin, performance art, and a poem In the 1890s young poet Erika Kieler attends the most progressive artistic salon in Berlin to perform her poem inspired by a visitor from the capital of the Ottoman Empire. In 1989, just before the Wall comes down, punk artist Trudi Zahn performs her own version of the same poem in an East Berlin club. And in 2009 Lottie Hoffmann prepares to perform Trudi's work at a cabaret for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The story explores the drive for women's authentic creativity and personal freedom, cross-cultural exchange, interpretations of history, artistic influence, and a universe in which ghosts appear.

"One last look at Europe" - that was the idea behind a 3-month trip in 2006. The weather was always good and that 3 months led to a life of unanchored travels, for years moving among countries and continents. In Local Time: a memoir of cities, friendships and the writing life New York, London, Bristol, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Barcelona all have a chapter devoted to them, and Rome has more. Other chapters explore themes like sexuality, Europe, identity among hybrids and hyphens, family secrets, the self fiction creates, ageing, beginnings, the history of friendships, and a life in which writing has been the centre. Known for her stylish provocative work the author has once more gone in new directions in this memoir.

A collection of short stories, 7 Stories of Mystery, Romance and Fabulation, mostly previously published, which include stories of a vampire cousin, aliens at a women's gathering, a woman with a penis for a day, a lover both man and woman, Heathcliff appearing to a desiring woman. The 2 novellas of the 60s, previously published, tell of teenage girls in the 1960s, stories of, love, identity and protest, of revolutionary music, rebellion and experiment, of Sydney and Asia, of the spirit of the times and the promise of the times ahead. From a critically acclaimed writer, author of 11 other books.

Set in southern India in the mid 1990s. Four strangers are on quests related to India's neem tree. Meenakshi runs a village-based women's project. Pandora is an eco scientist looking for a story. Jade wants natural products for a New York store. Andy hopes to find a cure for HiV/AIDS. The neem has been used since ancient times for household, medicinal and agricultural purposes and now is the centre of the clash between tradition and modernisation. When first published in India in 2003 Neem Dreams was widely acclaimed for the accuracy of observation and the pitch perfect depiction of the various characters.

Sydney, 1990. Sheila Power's crowning achievement in a spectacular career is making a film based on a cult novel, whose real life characters turn up in her own life. Her project brings her new enemies to vanquish, new friends to treasure, the love of her life, and empowering revelations as well as erotic experiences from Past Lives Sex Therapy. A queer comedy of manners that turns into a thriller.

In Sydney in the late 1970s, a well-educated young woman, Vita, also has a life as a call girl, Violet. Vita's friends are intrigued, scandalised, disapproving. Violet's world is made up of not only her clients but the other women she works with, who have much to teach her. The two worlds collide when both Vita and Violet meet an attractive actor. Which does he want? Which does she want to be?

Based on a true story, set in Sydney in the 1950s, Pagan is a story of the new music, the new migrations and the old magick. A world-famous composer meets a scandalous artist known as a witch, while his music student falls in love with a young newspaper reporter who is supposed to help ruin him. Pagan chronicles a society in transition, contains a moving evocation of young love, and tries to unravel the circumstances of a scandal of reputed orgies and pornographic photographs. The novel also deals with the feminist tradition of Wicca - witchcraft - and the highs and lows that individual live can encompass.

Australian teenager Larry Darrell goes on a backpacking trip to India and finds his life changed for ever. Back home he refuses the opportunities and privileges of his former life and breaks up with his fiancee Isabel. His travels seeking the meaning of chance and death take him to personal growth workshops, a fashionable ashram, the worlds of art and politics, a Buddhist monastery and an Indian saint. Meanwhile Isabel achieves wealth and status in marriage with Grey, a Queensland property developer. By the end of the 1980s they are bankrupt and disgraced. And Isabel will stop at nothing to get Larry back. Ten years later they meet again in Sydney, along with Isabel's camp, domineering uncle Elliott, their grieving, badly-behaved old friend Sophie, and Will Maugham, the playwright who narrates this story. With The Tiger is a contemporary take on the Somerset Maugham novel The Razor's Edge (1944), which popularised the idea of the Westerner's search for meaning in "spiritual India".