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Recent books attacking religion have held the headlines. Now this book presents the beliefs of ordinary people. This book features: Interviews with average believers of various faiths -- no militants, no theologians and no clerics; In their words, what they believe and how they practise their faith; 71.6% of the British people declared religious affiliation in the 2001 national census; The interviews in this Australian book provide an indirect insight into the beliefs of ordinary Britons; Includes contents page and index.

This is a novel set in China, a personal account of the turbulent years of Mao''s continuous revolution, including the social and political upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. This is a Chinese story which brings to life the suffering, the adventure, the crushing losses, the unvanquished idealism of the otherwise anonymous heroes and heroines of China''s post-war period. The novel tells the story of Mo Bing, from her under-cover work in Shanghai as a Communist Party cadre during the Civil War, through her denunciation and fall from grace during the Cultural Revolution to her rehabilitation and retirement in the early 1990s. Significant parts of the story include the experience of Mo Bing''s husband as a soldier and prisoner of war during the Korean War. The Cultural Revolution, and the Red Guard movement feature strongly through Mo Bing and her son. Life can never be exactly the same for Mo Bing and millions of her compatriots when Marshal Lin Biao, Mao''s ''closest comrade-in-arms'' flees after being accused of attempting to assassinate Mao. Shaken by the Cultural Revolution, as were many of her generation, Mo Bing develops as a survivor, her survival based on faith in herself, her undying idealism and her personal integrity. Trevor Hay and Fang Xiangshu continue their collaboration, building onto their earlier introduction of a distinctly Chinese aesthetic style into Australian literature.

An awakening... two occupied homelands... a young woman''s personal growth. Melati''s journey took her from a cloistered Swiss boarding school to the guerrilla camps of a scorched earth. Her own personal growth from a naive school girl to an independent young woman closely parallels the struggle for independence of her reclaimed homeland. Harumi Wanasita tells the story of one woman. She also tells the story of a generation. The Dutch-Indonesian descent people at the time of Indonesia''s declaration of independence were the last generation of their culture. This is their story. Reflecting the maturing of her character, Harumi varies her writing style as Melati develops. Naive at first for Melati''s wide-eyed innocence, the style is gradually refined as the novel moves through wartime Holland and Melati''s life with the guerrilla fighters in revolutionary Indonesia. Through all the experiences which make Melati''s story, Harumi retains a language and style reminiscent of an earlier simpler time, when innocence was its own reward.

Stories of Indian Pacific are three novellas, set in New Caledonia, Australia and Indonesia, written in Dewi Anggraeni''s engaging style that moves easily from one location to the next. ''To Drown a Cat'' explores racial tension in New Caledonia; Uncertain Step is the story of an Indonesian bride in Australia; and in Crossroads two artists, an Australian and an Indonesian, meet in Bali. The novella is set in 1988, shortly after the violent confrontation between the French army and Kanak separists in the northern island of Ouvea. The story explores the tensions that explode in bloody confrontation, within a family divided by allegiance to two sets of ancestors, the French Caldoche and the indigenous Kanak. ''Uncertain Step'' tells the story of Aryani, and her relatively late marriage to Steve, an Australian teacher who already has two children, and is still good friends with his previous wife. Aryani finds the Australian scenery, Steve''s hometown, Adelaide and people''s response to herself very different from everything she is used to in Bandung. Her uncertain step into marriage with this warm but almost unknown Australian is the story of so many Asian brides and their Australian husbands. In ''Crossroads'', the young Australian rock singer, Justin is introduced to a new world of art and life, when he meets the Balinese poet and playwright, Nyoman. Justin sees for the first time, art as close to nature and art as important for political and social change.

A journey through yoga from the yoga schools of Australia to the ancient origins in the Indus River Valley, 4500 years ago. The development of yoga in the ancient texts and practices of India is interwoven with its migration to the West. Dr Bilimoria takes the reader through the therapeutic aspects of yoga to the philosophical traditions in India. He completes the work with a critical review of yoga as practised in Western society generally, but with emphasis on the Australian experience. The introduction to the therapeutic value and ethical considerations of yoga bring the reader to the search for a guru, where Dr Bilimoria offers his advice concerning some precautions to take, to avoid questionable practitioners.

This is the story of a unique family, centred on Amyrra, one of twin sisters. Amyrra''s story is set mainly in modern Australia but also in ancient Java. Her life parallels the life of a queen, Ken Dedes, in the Golden Age of a Javanese kingdom. Amyrra seeks refuge in a personal God to free herself from her fate to love and suffer again, as she believes she had so many centuries earlier. The story opens with the adult sisters attending a wedding in suburban Camberwell, then quickly flashes back to childhood in Singapore. They were born in Singapore, where their Javanese father, Hardoyo, a poet and their French mother, Claudine, an artist, lived for ten years. Moving to Indonesia when the girls were just teen-age, the family is shocked when a village seer tells Amyrra that she is the present incarnation of the twelfth century Javanese queen, Ken Dedes, and that she will meet the present incarnation of the queen''s lover, Ken Arok, and they will resume their love affair. During the Golden Age of the Majapahit kingdom, Ken Dedes married her lover, Ken Arok, after he had killed her husband, the king. Their relationship ended unhappily and their descendants have fought and killed each other for generations after. Despite her obsession to avoid meeting her fated lover, Amyrra finally meets Sean Devlin, who she feels she has known for a long time. From then on, her life parallels the life of Ken Dedes, as she is swept toward the horrifying end.

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 boarders, Komala learns of a vicious attack on a night-club 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 acquiesce in this, allowing themselves to be dependent on a husband or lover, thereby allowing men to retain control. This 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.

Set in the summer and autumn of 1938, "Body and Soul" is eighteen-year-old disabled Lilbet Marks'' very biased account of the love affair between Felix Goldfarb, a recent migrant from Hitler''s Germany, and Lilbet''s twin sister Ella. Lilbet adores Ella, but also envies her beauty and for her ability to dazzle men. Lilbet''s father Simon Marks, her eldest sister Julie, and all their friends are entranced by Felix Goldfarb''s winning blend of worldly sophistication and boyish charm. Only bookish Lilbet suspects Felix might not be all that he seems. Also, it is imperative for her physical and psychological wellbeing that Ella remains at the family home. She is determined never to be parted from her twin. Within a few months, Felix departs, leaving behind gigantic gambling debts and Ella pregnant. Though he subsequently sends for Ella, Lilbet manages through clever manipulation to keep her twin by her side. As Lilbet records the day to day events at home, her newspaper cuttings and notes explore 1938 attitudes in general, the intolerance shown at the time towards the disabled, the ambivalence she feels towards her family, her insecurities, fear of loneliness and the double-edged sword of love and envy. Though it is a young woman''s musings, the voice is appropriate to the times in which she lived. Among the press clippings, the unconfirmed reports coming out of Hitler''s Germany of anti-Jewish violence and disappearances of whole Jewish communities, and the increasing belligerence of Germany towards her neighbours add to the growing tension for this Jewish family in Melbourne of the 1930s.

Fiona Hindmarsh, a successful middle-aged economist, likes to live her life her way. Beginning the love-of-her-life affair with the gorgeous Laine Macready, a girl who wears a Hardie Aimes shirt like no one else can, she is interrupted by a phone call. Her sister, Gillian, brings her the news that their mother, Muriel, had a heart attack at the top of a plum tree she was pruning and died. Irritably Fi sets off on a night-time drive home to help Gillian organise the funeral. What precisely is home for Fi? Where her mother lived in Northern New South Wales, among the tea-drinking relatives who, as Gillian reminds her, made Fi what she is today? Is home the girl of the moment who happens to make her heart miss a beat? Or is home merely one of the houses Fi has bought in Australia or leased in Bali? Fi is contrary, her head and her heart responding to different music. And as a child, Fi was sensitive to the ghostly spirits of the Bundjalung who inhabited the land the Hindmarshes and the Darks took over for dairy farms. How does she reconcile the mutterings and wailings and chantings she hears in her heart with the classic cinema sound booming in her head and the skin-smarting indignity of betrayal? A novel combining a love story with a perspective on the farmers'' settlement history of the Far North Coast of New South Wales, that grew with new grass on old rainforest soil.

Set in Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia, Snake is the first novel that Dewi Anggraeni has written about the Chinese descent communities in Southeast Asia. Their stories, woven into the tapestry of the mainstream Malay societies of Malaysia and Indonesia, have not only contributed to the respective society and national culture. They have also moulded the Southeast Asian overseas Chinese into a fascinating society in their own right. In common with Dewi''s earlier novels, Snake presents us with an intangible, even mysterious, part of Southeast Asian life. While effective curses, and the power inanimate objects can have over people -- power for good or power for evil -- are generally considered in Australia to be fantasy, they are very much a part of life in Southeast Asia. In ''Snake'', a brooch worn as a clasp for the traditional blouse, the kebaya, has power over its owner. Featuring Serena, a choreographer and lead dancer, this is the story of a family split by honour and pride, a family under the curse of a beautiful brooch. The brooch, named peniti ronce by its first owner, initially fascinates, and then destroys, its owner.