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155 pages

English

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When Adi leaves his village in Indonesia to take up an art scholarship in Australia, he arrives in the bewildering Sydney art world, determined to succeed. Following his first solo exhibition at a chic art gallery, Adi dares to reveal his true feelings for his spirited friend, Lisa, and a passionate relationship unfolds. But will their differing expectations of one another drive them apart?This is a deeply felt love story between people -- of different nations, cultures and religions -and the unseen impact of local and global events on individual lives.Reviews:"Lawrence's flair for evocative, communicative writing and her skill with narrative are everywhere in evidence, even as her story ranges widely in time and place. It deals with the most intimate personal experiences and the largest questions of cultural identity and political and religious conflict." - Nicholas Jose, Novelist and Editor of Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature."In telling the story of [Adi's] journey from Indonesia to Australia and back, and his maturation as an artist, the novel offers a compelling portrait of the rich cultural and political ties between these two countries as well as an acknowledgement of the silences and gaps that haunt their relationship."- Dr Shameem Black, Australian National University, author of Fiction Across Borders"In the wake of a tragedy, a young Indonesian man discovers renewal in art and struggles to find love in an unfamiliar land in this debut novel. When Adi is only 8 years old, his mother, Suriani, suddenly dies, a loss the Indonesian boy finds emotionally hobbling. Heis filled with "burning rage," and in response to his chronic misbehavior, his father, Totot, sends him to live with his aunts. Eventually, Adi takes art and English classes from Pak Harto, a teacher who is impressed by the student's "nave anddriving curiosity" and storehouse of natural talent. Pak arranges for Adi to move to Sydney, Australia, for three years,where he can earn a degree in art-the school waives its tuition fee and a charitable foundation pays for the young man'sliving expenses. Adi is mesmerized by Sydney and, in particular, by Lisa, a nude model who poses for one of his artclasses, a "young woman with pale mask-like skin, green eyes and full deep-red lips." Lisa is taken with him as well, butAdi is hesitant to pursue her, held back by the cultural chasm that separates them and by his poverty, a condition hebelieves makes him an ineligible bachelor. Lawrence sensitively portrays Adi's wonderment at his new life-both his artand his vision of the globe expand in response to a world of novel possibilities: "Something was changing inside him, andhe sensed the sink holes that were opening up, and through which everything he felt or discovered was flowing right oninto his art making." The author poignantly depicts Adi's burgeoning identity crisis-he feels neither Australian nor evenfully Indonesian and wrestles to find himself within an existence made rootless by the premature death of his mother.Lawrence avoids any didactic moralizing-in the place of some sententious lesson, she crafts a beautiful, complex lovestory. At the heart of her tale is a moving paean to the power of art to recast one's view of the world, to generate a "newsensibility, a new way of seeing."A touching story that intelligently explores the potential for art and romance to bridge a cultural divide." -- Kirkus Reviews"Details of both Sydney and Java are delightfully described through an artist's viewpoint ("freckled patterns of blue-grey green in the roadside bush, the sun-split muddy yellows and subtle hints of red and pink").This story of love and art impresses in its portrayal of the characters' hard-won success at bridging their cultural differences." -- Publishers' WeeklyAuthor:Annee lives in Australia and has an interest in exploring cross-cultural connection and the way identity shape-shifts in an unfamiliar place and culture. She has close friendship and family ties in Indonesia and was the recipient of an Asialink Arts' inaugural Tulis Australian-Indonesian Writing Exchange in 2018. As a result, she had a six-week residency at Kommunitas Salihara in Jakarta and was invited to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.Prior to becoming a tutor in literary and cultural studies at Western Sydney University in 2014, Annee worked as a writer, editor and community development worker in the areas of women's health, human rights and social justice. Two of her publications include: I Always Wanted To Be A Tap Dancer: Women With Disabilities and (with Nola Colefax on her memoir) Signs of Change: My Autobiography and History of Australian Theatre of the Deaf 1973-1983. In 1981 she was founding editor of Healthright: A Journal of Women's Health, Family Planning and Sexuality.Annee has published articles in New Writing, Griffith Review, Hecate and Cultural Studies Review. The Colour of Things Unseen is her debut novel.

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Historical fiction

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Publié par	Distributed By PublishDrive
Date de parution	29 août 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781912430185
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0166€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Table of Contents
Author Biography
Colour of Things TEXT MASTER- 2019-07-03

Acknowledgements

Annee lawrence
Annee lives in Australia and has an interest in exploring cross-cultural connection and the way identity shape-shifts in an unfamiliar place and culture. She has close friendship and family ties in Indonesia and was the recipient of an Asialink Arts’ inaugural Tulis Australian-Indonesian Writing Exchange in 2018. As a result, she had a six-week residency at Kommunitas Salihara in Jakarta and was invited to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.
Prior to becoming a tutor in literary and cultural studies at Western Sydney University in 2014, Annee worked as a writer, editor and community development worker in the areas of women’s health, human rights and social justice. Two of her publications include: I Always Wanted To Be A Tap Dancer: Women With Disabilities and (with Nola Colefax on her memoir) Signs of Change: My Autobiography and History of Australian Theatre of the Deaf 1973–1983 . In 1981 she was founding editor of Healthright: A Journal of Women’s Health, Family Planning and Sexuality.
Annee has published articles in New Writing, Griffith Review, Hecate and Cultural Studies Review. The Colour of Things Unseen is her debut novel.

First published in the UK in 2019 by Aurora Metro Publications Ltd.
67 Grove Avenue, Twickenham, TW1 4HX
www.aurorametro.com info@aurorametro.com
The Colour of Things Unseen copyright © 2019 Annee Lawrence
Cover image: © 2016 Pranoto Ahmad Rahji, Pranoto’s Art Gallery, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia www.facebook.com/Pranotos-Art-Gallery
Cover design: © 2019 Aurora Metro Publications Ltd.
Editor: Cheryl Robson

All rights are strictly reserved. For rights enquiries please contact the publisher: info@aurorametro.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
In accordance with Section 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Annee Lawrence asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of the above work.
This paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBNs:
978-1-912430-17-8 (print)
978-1-912430-18-5 (ebook)

T he Colour Of Things Unseen
by
Annee Lawrence

For Ida, Emil and Tahlia

Part One
A village, Central Java
1980s – 1990s

Mama is making batik. She is drawing lines of wax on the creamy coloured cloth. I like the smell of it. Like the way the wispy grey smoke rises from the melted wax in the blackened dish. I even like the wash of heat on my face when I draw close to the hot coals.
The batik stand is at the front of our house, and when the doors are open you can see it from the street. My big sister Yanti says only girls make batik but I want to make batik too. I know I can.
Our village has only a few streets and our house is like all the other houses, wooden and with large doors at the front. In the daytime we open the doors and shutters so the light streams across the smooth, chocolate brown, earth floor where our family sits on a mat to eat, or drink tea with visitors. There are three bedrooms at the back and we have one black and white goat. I wish we had more goats, and a cow as well. I like cows.
Mama’s eyes are soft and kind like a happy cow’s. Yanti says there are no stars in Mama’s eyes, but when she smiles I can see stars sparkling.
Mama is called Suriani. She is beautiful, even more beautiful than Princess Sita. Her hair is black as the darkest night and she has a thick plait with a curly pointy end that brushes the top of her sarong when she walks. Sometimes when Mama bends over, the plait leaps up and over her shoulder and she has to catch hold of it.
She scolds it as she tosses it back. “Very naughty to run away. Now home you must go,” she says, and this makes me laugh.
Mama has pale half-moons at the top of her nails and I can see them when she holds the bamboo cane handle of the canting in her long fingers. The brass cup on the canting is no bigger than a rambutan seed and a minute spout bends over at the front of it. Mama dips the canting in the dish and fills it with the hot brown wax. She blows gently into the spout to clear the bubbles, and when she draws on the cloth with the wax, it sets in a creamy gold line on the fabric.
“Mama, please … I want to make batik too.”
Mama looks up and I see the stars sparkling in her eyes. “Alright Adi, she says. Now you are five, perhaps it is time for you to make batik too. Yes?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Perhaps you would like to make a butterfly batik?” Mama says.
“Yes, yes,” I say, and Mama finds a piece of cloth and draws a large butterfly on it with a pencil.
“Now you will learn to use the canting, but you must be very careful of the fire and the hot wax. Are you watching?”
So many times I have seen my mother, grandmother and aunts all making batik.
“I know, I know already,” I yell.
“Pay attention, sweetheart. See, this is how you trace the outline of the butterfly with the wax.”
I like the sound Mama makes when she blows into the tiny spout. I purse my lips and practise: Phew, phew. It tickles and I start to laugh. Phew, phew.
Mama lowers the canting to the cloth and begins tracing a fine even line of wax around the butterfly’s wing.
“Let me,” I yell again. “I can do it.”
“Very well,” Mama says and spreads out a scrap of cloth. “Have a try first on this until you get the hang of it, yes?”
I seize the canting and dip it into the hot wax, filling the little cup. Phew, phew, I blow into the spout just like Mama. I can do it.
Mama smiles and leans over me while I practise. She puts her face close to the top of my head and inhales.
“Very sweet,” she says. “I think you are ready to begin now.”
So I dip, blow, and tense my hand to keep it steady, but when I start to trace along the butterfly’s wing, an ugly blob of wax goes plop! Right in the middle of it.
“Aduh!” I scream. It’s ruined. Tears sting my eyes and cheeks, but Mama ignores them.
“It’s nothing,” she says, and picks off the honey-coloured scab with her fingernail.

The brown, cream and indigo patterns of our family’s sarongs, kebayas and selendangs are as familiar as my own skin and I can see them always in my mind. Ever since I was baby, I have gone with my mother and aunts to the markets in Solo to sell batik, and even all the way on the train to the big market in Yogyakarta. Back then, Mama carried me in a selendang on her back or against her breast, and Yanti carried me in a selendang on her hip too.
When we hear the faint sound of the gamelan drifting across the rice fields, Mama and I look at one another and begin packing up.
“Quick Adi,” Mama says. “It’s time for the shadow puppet show. Where’s Papa and the others?”
As Mama clears away the fire, wax and canting, Yanti and our two brothers, Budi and Ismoyo, arrive. Then Papa rushes in and says, “Hurry, hurry. It’s time to go.”

Chapter 1
Adi was just six when his mother Suriani died, but no one told him she had died or, if they did, he didn’t hear, or perhaps he just couldn’t bear it. She was just thirty-two. One day she was filling up his day, and then she was gone. First there was sunlight and laughter, and then thick clouds of ash crept into the house and layered the surface of family life, made everything grey, pressed down on them while they slept, and caused them to feel tired and cross when they awoke.
Adi looked for traces of her, but there were none. Her sarongs, kebayas, hair bands, and even her scent, had all gone.
When he asked where she was, his big sister Yanti said, “Mama has gone away.” And when he begged her to help him find her, she just said, “That’s not possible.”
He waited and waited for her return and, when his sense of abandonment formed itself into a fist of pain where his heart’s joy had been, he began thinking in colours. And then he found a little door to a place where flashes of memory were stored – fragments, moments of their shared times together – in vivid colours or sepia tones, and sometimes sharp-focused and sometimes blurred, and these slid across the events of his day, or into his dreams at night.
Slivers of memory lit up the things and people around him and connected him to his mother’s presence as well as her absence. The press of her body, the softness of her voice, the ring of her laugh, and even the feeling of the weight of her plait could be triggered any time by scents, sounds, colours, and especially by patterns: the garuda wings on a sarong drying on a neighbour’s clothesline, the jerking pointy end of a girl’s long plait as she walked down the road, the cloud of yellow butterflies that rose unbidden from the rice field, the splash of a leaping frog.
Mostly these things reassured him and made him feel calm, but it seemed more and more that, as time passed, they were from another time, perhaps even from before he was born – and they were not just his own memories, but those of everyone he knew.
When their mother died, thirteen-year-old Yanti left school to take care of the family, all four of them – their father To