Belomor

Nicolas Rothwell, Text

This is an artful, ambitious and successful work, comprising four stories that interweave history and impressions of Europe — in particular the old East Germany — with the coast and inland of Australia.

The writer effortlessly moves his alter ego characters between World War Two and the bombing of Dresden, to life under Stasi secret police in East Berlin, to inland Australian landscape and indigenous culture.

The style is European and poignant, and the journeys become pilgrimages for yearning souls from old cultures seeking new horizons and hopes in distant southern lands.

The reader is beguiled by assured layering of place, memory, philosophy, art history and, above all, an earnest yet honest spiritual quest.

This book is representative of the experience of migration of many in this country and it is surprisingly redemptive.

In this ancient continent a deeper sense of humanity is found that redresses the tragedy of Europe in the 20th century.

Recommended.

Geoffrey Sykes