Luca Antara

Description

A rich tapestry of history and the present. Essentially, it parallels the life of the author, an emigre to Sydney, and the life of a historical figure, Antonio da Nova, the servant of a Portuguese explorer who, in the 1600s, sends him to find out more about Luca Antara (now Australia). The lives of the two men, the strange customs and unique social mores of each man's culture and time intertwine throughout. It ends with Edmond literally walking in the footsteps of da Nova across northern Australia.

Martin Edmond grew up in a remote mountain village in New Zealand's King Country. After university, he joined avant theatre troupe Red Mole, touring extensively and internationally in the late 1970s. Since 1981 he has lived in Sydney, working as an author and a screenwriter. He has written the feature films Illustrious Energy and Terra Nova; his books include The Autobiography of my Father, The Resurrection of Philip Clairmont and Chronicle of the Unsung, which won the Biography Award at the 2005 Montana Book Awards.

Reading this book is like listening to someone whose companionable, open-ended stories are absorbing yet elusive: you must make of them what you will -- Artemis Cooper * Daily Telegraph * part autobiography, part history, part travel book and part quest narrative, an unusual combination that nevertheless works. Indeed, Edmond's text is often a pure pleasure to read -- John Clay * The Literary Review * On one level, Edmond's curiously ambiguous book might be mistaken for a novel; on another, it is autobiography; on yet another it is literary history -- Iain Finlayson * The Times * In this part-memoir, part-fiction, part-history, Edmond attempts to find 'Luca Antara', the fabled land down under -- Naomi Mapstone * The Financial Times * ultimately, any memoir's agenda may be to present the multifariousness of the self, and where Edmond the protagonist is most vivid is in his evocations of his adopted Australia -- Jim Shepard * New York Times *