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Lloyd Jones lives in Wellington, New Zealand. He travelled to Papua New Guinea at the outset of the blockade and visited the island twice ten years later; once, to visit the New Zealand Peacekeeping mission, the second time to stay with Sam Kauona, the military leader of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army.
A History of Silence is a touching memoir about a country and a landscape. It's about the devastation in Christchurch after the 2011 earthquake and the faultlines that this event opened up in Lloyd Jones' understanding of his own family. It's about how easily we erase from our history, the stories that we find inconvenient. In his typically lyrical and engaging prose, Jones embarks on a journey of discovery. On this journey he finds out more about his country and the landscape that surrounds him, but he also uncovers the truth about his family. This truth is completely unexpected and changes everything. This deeply moving book is about loss and survival and silence.
A History of Silence is a touching memoir about a country and a landscape. It's about the devastation in Christchurch after the 2011 earthquake and the faultlines that this event opened up in Lloyd Jones' understanding of his own family. It's about how easily we erase from our history, the stories that we find inconvenient. In his typically lyrical and engaging prose, Jones embarks on a journey of discovery. On this journey he finds out more about his country and the landscape that surrounds him, but he also uncovers the truth about his family. This truth is completely unexpected and changes everything. This deeply moving book is about loss and survival and silence.
From the Author of Mr Pip, shortlisted for the Man Booker, is an original and extraordinary novel that makes readers think and question. A moving and inspiring tale of a mother crossing continents searching for her child, meeting people and changing their lives as well as her own.
February 2010 Good Housekeeping selection. On My Bookshelf by Tamsin Greig... Matilda, a young girl in Papua New Guinea during the civil war in the 1990s is taught in a semi-destroyed school by the only white man on the island. Popeye, as the children have named him, is old and stooped, and his only term of reference for teaching is a copy of Great Expectations. Told from Matilda’s perspective, the prose is engagingly simple and affecting as she learns to love Dickens’ Victorian England, and the book provides not only an escape for her, but brings its own danger crashing into their lives. Her relationship with her mother is a pendulum swing of bitter misunderstanding and fierce sacrificial love that literally took my breath away. The Lovereading view... Reviewed on Richard & Judy on Wednesday 27 February 2008.Set on a small South Pacific island with war looming a teacher brings Dickens to life for a group of children who should be enjoying their paradise surroundings instead of contemplating the impending war moving towards them.
The Life, Times & Labours of Robert Owen - Volume I & II;With a Biography by Leslie Stephen by Lloyd Jones
A powerful allegorical tale about humanity and dignity and the ease with which we can justify brutality. Two mysterious strangers turn up at a hotel in a small country town. Where have they come from? Who are they? What catastrophe are they fleeing? The townspeople want answers, but the strangers are unable to speak of their trauma. Before long, wary hospitality shifts to suspicion and fear, and the care of the men slides into appalling cruelty. Lloyd Jones's fable-like novel The Cage is a profound and unsettling novel
Ein faszinierendes Buch uber Neuseeland, die vom Erdbeben zerstorte Stadt Christchurch, eine Einwandererfamilie aus Europa, uber Lloyd Jones selbst. Nach dem schweren Erdbeben, das Christchurch im Februar 2011 nahezu in Schutt und Asche legte, fhrt Lloyd Jones in die zerstrte Stadt. Er hrt der Stille nach, die auf ein Beben folgt, und lsst sich von ihr leiten. Die Betrachtung der Stadt wird immer mehr zu einer Spurensuche und Selbsterforschung - als wren mit den verheerenden Erdsten erst die Brche und Lcken in Jones' eigener Familiengeschichte erkennbar geworden. Seine Groeltern hat er nie kennengelernt, die Mutter wollte es nicht. Denn ihre Mutter hatte sie als Kind weggegeben, um einem Mann zu folgen, und das hat sie nie berwunden. In der Familie wurde darber geschwiegen. Und ber so manches andere auch. Wie viel leichter wre seine Jugend gewesen, stellt Lloyd Jones auf seiner Spurensuche fest, wenn man stattdessen geredet htte. Sein Buch ist ein Pldoyer fr Offenheit und fr das Niederreien von familiren Tabus. Nachdem er das Hinterland von Christchurch erkundet hat, reist Lloyd Jones weiter, bers Meer nach Pembroke Dock in Wales. Von dort sind seine Urgromutter und sein Grovater zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts aufgebrochen, um ein neues Leben auf dem fernen Kontinent zu beginnen. Was haben sich die Auswanderer erhofft? Konnte das raue Leben in Neuseeland ihren Trumen gerecht werden?Dieses feinfhlige Buch verbindet Familiengeschichte und Landesgeschichte auf gekonnte Weise. Die Mythen von Auswanderung und Eroberung einer fremden Welt vermischen sich mit literarischer Selbsterkundung. Es ist das bislang persnlichste Buch von Lloyd Jones, in dem er seinen Wurzeln nachgeht und aufzeigt, wie wichtig fr uns alle das Wissen um unsere Herkunft ist.
The next morning Alma showed up with his tin case of pencils and his sketchbooks. She showed him through to the sitting room. She had an idea that a sitting was a formal occasion and in preparation had gone around the room straightening cushions and pulling off furnishing covers. She had dressed herself up in her Sunday best, a black skirt and red blouse. She had been toying with putting a flower in her hair. Long ago, when the men were away at the war, Alma began painting the women of the town. Alice, his favourite, returned his attentions, and when her husband George came home from the war, he set out to prove his love and reclaim his wife by moving a hill to improve the view for her - with a spade and wheelbarrow. Now, decades later, the townspeople, looking to escape various corners of despair, turn to Alma's drawing classes and, in doing so, learn to rediscover each other. For when you draw, the only thing that matters is what lies before you. Paint Your Wife is a colourful, sensual novel, brimming with rich stories and even richer characters.
Jeder Tango beginnt mit einem Ruckwartsschritt: Neuseeland 1916. In einer abgelegenen Hohle an der Kuste verstecken sich die junge Louise und der Klavierstimmer Schmidt vor den Wirren des Weltkriegs. Zum Zeitvertreib tanzen sie Tango, die Begleitmusik singen sie selbst. Sie kommen sich naher, aber schon bald holt die Wirklichkeit sie ein. Erst Jahre spater begegnen sie sich in Buenos Aires ein zweites Mal. Schmidt hat indes geheiratet, wird bald Vater, und so bleiben ihnen wieder nur der Tanz und die Lieder Carlos Gardels. Ein Schritt nach vorn: zwei Generationen spter trifft die elegante Rosa, Schmidts Enkelin, auf den jungen Studenten Lionel, der in ihrem Restaurant in Wellington Teller wscht. Auf den Spuren des Grovaters fhrt sie ihn in die Welt des Tangos ein, beschwrt den Zauber der Vergangenheit herauf, und eine weitere Affre nimmt ihren Lauf. Lloyd Jones verwandelt die melancholischen Klnge des argentinischen Tangos in kraftvolle, sinnliche Prosa. Tanzend verlassen seine Figuren den gewohnten Alltag, finden in der Fremde zueinander und entdecken die Heimat neu. Fr die Dauer eines Liedes scheint alles mglich, auch wenn die Realitt jenseits der Tanzflche eine andere sein mag.
Dies ist die Geschichte einer Frau. Und des Lastwagenfahrers, der sie fur eine Hure hielt. Der Leute, die sie ubers Meer schmuggelten. Und die des alten Mannes, den sie beraubte. Der Frau, deren Namen sie stahl. Es ist die Geschichte einer Mutter auf der Suche nach ihrem Kind. Sie nennt sich Ines, aber niemand kennt ihren echten Namen, ihren Geburtsort; nur das Ziel ihrer Reise ist bekannt: Berlin. Ob sie Geschwister hat, ob ihre Eltern noch leben, konnte keiner der Menschen sagen, denen die junge Afrikanerin auf ihrem Weg durch die Festung Europa begegnet. Sie erinnern sich, sie erzahlen von ihr, der Frau im blauen Mantel, deren Haut hell ist und sommersprossig. Nach und nach, fast nach Art eines Kriminalromans, entfaltet sich ihre Geschichte und mit ihr die Geschichte der Menschen, deren Weg sie gekreuzt hat, die sie beschenkt, benutzt und in ihre eigenen Lebenslugen eingesponnen haben: des Straenkunstlers, der sich in Ines verliebt, des blinden Mannes, dem sie den Haushalt fuhrt - und schlielich des Kommissars, der bald erkennt: Die Wahrheit hat viele Gesichter.
A boy watches his mother hooked and reeled ashore by a fisherman. A couple give up their seats on a bus for lovers soon to be parted. A husband enters a world imagined by his wife and pretends to be the man she loves. The Man in the Shed is a haunting collection of stories about family, love and longing. These extraordinary tales take conventional life and tilt it sideways, delivering a memorable blend of the real and the surreal.
When Biografi was first published, it was met first with enormous critical acclaim - only to become the centre of a heated controversy. Was it fact or fiction? Had Lloyd Jones concocted his story of life in the new Albania? Or was it travel literature as its publishers insisted? Equal parts travelogue, political reportage and bizarre mystery novel, Lloyd Jones crosses Albania as it reinvents itself - a volatile, surreal wonderland where nothing is quite as it seems.
In August 1905 a party of young men set sail for England. Amongst them were ordinary farmers and bootmakers, a miner and a bank clerk. Together they made up the All Blacks, an unknown rugby team from Auckland, New Zealand. And they had come to show the world what they could do. What they didn't know was that they were bound for fame. The first game was in Devon, 'played in golden farm light, a surprising victory'. By December they had become the 'wonderful All Blacks' who had beaten Yorkshire 40-0, England 15-0 and Ireland 15-0. People stopped them in the streets. In this melding of true history and imagination, Lloyd Jones has recreated an unforgettable journey from innocence to celebrity.
In a cave set back from the ocean, on the coast of New Zealand, Louise and Schmidt hide along with two local boys frightened of being called up to fight in the Great War. But the sensual rhythm of the tango lessons which Schmidt teaches on that sandy cave floor will have devastating consequences for all of them. Two generations later, Schmidt's fiery granddaughter Rosa, running an Argentine restaurant, captivates a young man with the same sultry music that inspired seduction and deception so many years before.
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