No man is an island

Author: Adele Dumont

Publisher:  Sydney, NSW: Hachette Australia, 2016

Annotation: 

When Adele Dumont was 24, she volunteered to teach English to men held in detention on Christmas Island. Finding the work rewarding, she later took a job teaching English at the Curtin detention centre, near the remote desert town of Derby, Western Australia. Dumont provides a thoughtful, insider view on Australia's immigration policies through her thoughtful reflection on her years spent working with limited resources among men who have fled persecution and difficult circumstances in their home countries and found themselves in detention, facing uncertain futures. No Man is an Island has been described as "essential reading for anyone who assumes they understand what the asylum seeker issue is all about, regardless of their opinion." (Sydney Morning Herald)

For more information:

• Hachette (publisher)
• Goodreads
• Sydney Morning Herald

Spinifex and sunflowers

Author: Avan Judd Stallard

Publisher: Fremantle, W.A.: Fremantle Press, 2018

Annotation: 

Spinifex and Sunflowers relates the story of Nick Harris, an unlikable debt-ridden drifter who finds employment as a prison guard at a refugee detention centre in Western Australian desert. As time passes, the detainees open up to Nick and tell him the stories of the lives and loved ones they left behind how they came to Australia's shores. 

Described by Books + Publishing magazine as "well written, confronting, passionate and often graphic," this gritty, haunting and, at times, disturbing novel, lends readers an inside view on life inside Australia's immigrant detention centres. 

For more information:

• Freemantle Press (publisher)
• Goodreads