Month: November 2019

“Soaring with Cockatoos”, recently translated into French and German, retells the story of heroic resistance by an Aboriginal tribe, led by a charismatic young leader, to the invasion by Europeans in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in the latter part of the 19th century.

For people of a certain age 1968 was a year of political awakening: we realised we could do something about wars, we could defy unjust governments. Especially students were at the forefront of all of that. This novel, set in the Germany of that period, tells of the awakening of a conservative but decent young Englishman, but it is also a broad portrait of life in that country: there was a lot of unfinished business from the time of the Nazis.

Not a theological work, but an adventure story set on a lovely Pacific island. It has the elements of life: love, politics, and religion. With the pace of a “thriller”.

In the 1920’s Germany was regarded as one of the world’s most cultured countries, but in 1933 it became the most oppressive. How was that slide possible? Because so many cultured people did not want to become involved. This is the story of a journalist who made a mission of attacking all forms of chauvinism (he had experienced the horrors of World War I). Despite the dangers he was convinced he had to act “as though everything depended on me”. Naturally his fate was sealed was soon as Hitler took over.

Did Jesus think he was God? Was Mary Magdalene a whore? What was the true role of Judas? How does John the Baptist fit into the story of Jesus? Was Jesus a potent healer? If so, how did he achieve that?

In the 19th century Europeans thought they had the right to colonise the rest of the world. There was even an “agreement” that if a citizen of a European power could live for a year in “unclaimed” territory, exhibiting the national flag, that territory could legitimately be added to the empire. But sometimes the “visitor” put the interests of the “natives” above those of his own empire. Read the story of Baron Maklin, sent by the Russian government to claim a large island north of Australia, who refused to do so. His adventures later in Australia were also quite remarkable.

In the period of Trump it is doubly necessary to have a vibrant, honest press. It was the same in 1920’s Germany when Nazism was on the rise. Read about it in this novel.