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

We are here: my family's courageous journey to survive

Author:  Cat Thao Nguyen

Publisher:  Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2015

Annotation: 

Born in a refugee camp on the borders of Cambodia and Thailand to parents fleeing war in Vietnam, Cat Thao Nguyen tells the story of how her family came to settle in Australia and her experiences growing up in Western Sydney in the 80s and 90s. In this candid memoir, described as "unflinching in its detail of the many tortured steps to freedom," (Sydney Morning Herald) Nguyen unpacks the sacrifices made by her family as they struggle to overcome the scars of their past traumas and make a new life for themselves in a society that is not always welcoming.

For more information:

• Allen & Unwin (publisher)
• Goodreads
• Sydney Morning Herald

Questions of travel

Author:  Michelle De Kretser

Publisher:  New York: Little, Brown and Company 2013

Annotation: 

Questions of Travel tells the stories of Laura Fraser, an alienated Sydneysider who escapes to Europe and forges a new identity as an expat travel write after a beloved aunt dies, leaving her a modest inheritance. She returns home, aimless and unmoored.  Meanwhile Ravi Mendes, a Sri Lankan refugee has fled to Australia after the brutal murder of his wife and child in the country's civil war. Their stories are told in alternating chapters and, inevitably, their paths cross and their stories entwine. 

Questions of Travel both the 2013 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and the 2013 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction. Writing in Booklist, Hazel Rochman says of the book: "This ironic, contemporary view of finding home makes for heartfelt drama." 

Additional formats: Also available as an audiobook

For more information:

• Little Brown (publisher)
• Goodreads
• The Guardian
• Australian Book Review
  
  

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