AustLit

'From the earliest years, and for many years thereafter, the voice accompanies him. Foreign, but familiar, it's barbed with an edge beyond which opens abysses. He knows his father was born into the shadow-lands of Europe, in the first half of 1940. He's heard that the men of the father's family fought on the other, resisting side, the good side. but there's no way of knowing the truth, of the time, of their enemy, notorious for being more unhinged than the worst of their German counterparts. Of knowing if his own family had a hand in the excesses, very distant now, still brooding in its veins. He imagines he has no part in it, born as he is into the lucky country, to the lucky migrant father, over three decades later.' (Publication abstract)