GAIL JONES

Sixty Lights is the captivating chronicle of Lucy Strange, an independent girl growing up in the Victorian world. From her childhood in Australia through to her adolescence in England and Bombay and finally to London, Lucy is fascinated by light and by the new photographic technology.

On a radiant day in Sydney, four adults converge on Circular Quay, site of the iconic Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge Crowds of tourists mix with the locals, enjoying the glorious surroundings and the play of light on water But just as Circular Quay resonates with Australia´s past, each of the four carries a complicated history from elsewhere...

We travel to find ourselves; to run away from ourselves. 'A Guide to Berlin' is the name of a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1925, when he was a young man of 26, living in Berlin. A group of six international travellers, two Italians, two Japanese, an American and an Australian, meet in empty apartments in Berlin to share stories and memories. Each is enthralled in some way to the work of Vladimir Nabokov, and each is finding their way in deep winter in a haunted city. A moment of devastating violence shatters the group, and changes the direction of everyone's story. Brave and brilliant, A Guide to Berlin traces the strength and fragility of our connections through biographies and secrets.

This is a story that can only be told in a whisper...In the remote outback of North-west Australia, English anthropologist Nicholas Keene and his wife Stella raise a curious child, Perdita. Her childhood is far from ordinary; a shack in the wilderness, with a distant father burying himself in books and an unstable mother whose knowledge of Shakespeare forms the backbone of the girl's limited education. Emotionally adrift, Perdita develops a friendship with an Aboriginal girl, Mary, with whom she will share a very special bond. She appears content with her unusual family life in this remote corner of the globe until Nicholas Keane is discovered murdered. Through this exquisite story of a young girl's survival against the odds, Gail Jones explores the values of friendship, loyalty and sacrifice with a skill that has already earned her numerous accolades for her previous novels "Dreams of Speaking" and "Sixty Lights".

El don de Jones para producir una prosa luminosa y su destreza en las descripciones son innegables. The Guardian En 1860, con sólo ocho y diez años, Lucy Strange y su hermano Thomas se quedan huérfanos. Su tio, el extravagante e irreverente Neville, se hace cargo de ellos y se los lleva a Londres, en donde empezaran una vida alejada del aroma y el color de la India, lugar en el que habian vivido hasta entonces y donde su madre se habia topado con la muerte y su padre le habia buscado enconadamente hasta conseguir salir a su nefasto encuentro. Todas estas vivencias quedan grabadas en la mente de la pequeña Lucy y cuando crece descubre que es posible plasmar por fin las imagenes que siempre habia alojado en se cabeza y que guardaba en su cuaderno de Cosas especiales vistas, captar la luz y convertirla en memoria y a ello se dedicara con pasion de chiquilla enamorada. La memoria de la luz es la cautivadora biografia de una joven moderna e independiente de la era victoriana, narrada a traves de un complejo entramado de capas tejido con pulso firme y elegante. Su universo es un conjunto de imagenes fijas, que un dia, impresas en papel albuminado, dejara tras de si como conmovedores recuerdos de una vida extraordinaria.

Classic novel by Gayl Jones exploring trauma, memory, and generational legacy through powerful prose.

Sixty Lights is the captivating chronicle of Lucy Strange, an independent girl growing up in the Victorian world. From her childhood in Australia through to her adolescence in England and Bombay and finally to London, Lucy is fascinated by light and by the new photographic technology. Her perception of the world is passionate and moving, revealed in a series of frozen images captured in the camera of her minds eye showing her feelings about love, life and loss. In this confident, finely woven and intricate novel Jones has created an unforgettable character in Lucy; visionary, gifted and exuberant, she touches the lives of all who know her.

This is a story that can only be told in a whisper...In the remote outback of Western Australia, English anthropologist Nicholas Keene and his wife Stella raise a curious child, Perdita. Her childhood is far from ordinary; a shack in the wilderness, with a distant father burying himself in books and an unstable mother whose knowledge of Shakespeare forms the backbone of the girls limited education. Emotionally adrift, Perdita develops a friendship with an Aboriginal girl, Mary, with whom she will share a very special bond. She appears content with her unusual family life in this remote corner of the globe until Nicholas Keane is discovered murdered...

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 STELLA PRIZEWe travel to find ourselves; to run away from ourselves. A Guide to Berlin is the name of a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1925, when he was a young man of 26, living in Berlin.A group of six international travellers, two Italians, two Japanese, an American and an Australian, meet in empty apartments in Berlin to share stories and memories. Each is enthralled in some way by the work of Vladimir Nabokov, and each is finding their way in deep winter in a haunted city. A moment of devastating violence shatters the group, and changes the direction of everyones story.Brave and brilliant, A Guide to Berlin traces the strength and fragility of our connections through biographies and secrets.

On a radiant day in Sydney, four people converge on Circular Quay, site of the iconic Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Each of the four is haunted by secrets from the past: Ellie is preoccupied by her sexual experiences as a girl, James by a tragedy for which he feels responsible, Catherine by the loss of her beloved brother in Dublin and Pei Xing by her imprisonment during Chinas Cultural Revolution. Told over the course of a single Saturday, Five Bells vividly describes four lives which chime and resonate. By night-time, when Sydney is drenched in a rainstorm, each life has been transformed.

Far away from home and her beloved but distant sister, Norah, Alice meets an old Japanese man on a train journey. Together they form an unlikely friendship at a crucial point in Alices life where she is reflecting upon her family and her past, and disentangling herself from an old love affair.Alice is fascinated by the poetry of technology, and Mr Sakomoto, a survivor of the atomic bomb, entrances her with his amazing stories of twentieth-century inventions, including Alexander Graham Bell and the mysteries of the telephone. Drawn together by their shared enthusiasms, these two solitary beings slowly come to rely on one another.In Dreams of Speaking, prize-winning author Gail Jones paints with grace and skill the experience of needing to belong despite wanting to be alone.