Proust’s Marcel and Thackeray’s Becky Sharp. Vladimir Nabokov And your favourite literary hero and heroine? ‘Drongo’ sounds like its meaning and perfectly describes certain people. ‘Liminal’ is a word abused by academics to spice up their bad prose. Which word do you most dislike, and which would you like to see back in public usage? Name the three people with whom you would most like to dine.Ī St Patrick’s Day dinner with Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, and Flann O’Brien. The mysterious and exquisite The Colour of Pomegranates (1968), directed by Sergei Parajanov. Weekends in bed with my wife, Mandy, and Coco and Basil, our chihuahuas. I know I dream, but all I remember are my nightmares. Review by Claire Saxby, Children’s AuthorĪvailable from good bookstores or online.Louis Nowra (photograph by Adam Knott)If I knew the answer to that I probably wouldn’t write. Recommended for mid-primary and for all ages beyond. The girls must survive not only their experience in the bush but its aftermath. The main theme is that of survival, but friendship and family bonds are also explored in depth. It is suggested that the target reader is in mid- to upper-primary but the story deserves a wide readership and has much interest for adults too. The action is set in a time when Tigers were being killed to protect the interests of the growing farming community. Their Tiger family are patient and caring in teaching them all they must know. The Tiger world is a brutal one and the girls must adapt or perish. Two young girls find themselves in the forest being raised by Tasmanian Tigers. Into That Forest is a powerful story of survival. Each section begins with an image of the Tasmanian bush and text that begins large then diminishes to normal size. Survival depends on working together with their tiger family.

Hour by hour, week by week, they become less human, more tiger, until they forget their language, forget almost everything they have known before.

Hannah and Rebecca end up in the bush, saved by Tasmanian Tigers. The weather changes and the river becomes a monster. The family set off on the river for a special picnic. So it is a special day when her father is home, and her friend Rebecca has come to stay overnight. Only Rebecca and her father visit, and not very often. Her father, a whaler, is a welcome but infrequent third member of their family. Hannah lives deep in the Tasmanian wilderness, with only her mother for company. Though I live here by meself I am not lonely. It is crumbling round me ears now, but the roof hardly leaks and if I chop enough wood I can heat the place when it snows. I were born in Tasmania, born not in a hospital but here in the backblocks. But here’s me story and I be glad to tell it before I hop the twig. Me first thing is an apology – me language is bad cox I lost it and had to learn it again. Me name be Hannah O’Brien and I be seventy-six years old.

Into That Forest by Louis Nowra